If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad. – Epictetus
Examine yourself whether you wish to be rich or to be happy. If you wish to be rich, you should know that it is neither a good thing nor within your power: if you wish to be happy, you should know that is both a good thing and in your power, for the one is a temporary loan of fortune, and happiness comes from the will. – Epictetus
Envy is the antagonist of the fortunate. – Epictetus
He who bears in mind what man is will never be troubled at anything which happens. – Epictetus
I found the road to wealth when I decided that a part of all I earned was mine to keep. – George Clason, The Richest Man in Babylon
Selfishness doesn’t scale. – Eric Barker
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears towards a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.” – Viktor Frankl
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. – Steve Jobs
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. – Kurt Vonnegut
If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish. – David Foster Wallace
Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it’s conditional. – Albert Ellis
We were always getting ready to live, but never living. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The President is the best of us. – William Seward, re: Abraham Lincoln
What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing. – Abraham Lincoln
Act well your part. There all the honor lies. He who does something at the head of one regiment will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred. – Abraham Lincoln
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. – John Quincy Adams
The cost of leadership is self-interest. – Lt. Gen. George Flynn, USMC
Whereas the Greatest Generation was defined by the need to serve others, the Boomer generation started on a path of taking care of themselves. As our wealth and attitudes changed, we started to transform from a country that would fight to protect our way of life into a country that would fight to protect the way we prefer to live. – Simon Sinek
Stock markets are more efficient than you are lucky. – Bill Schultheis
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. – Aeschylus
Action is the foundational key to all success. – Picasso
Intensity is the price of excellence. – Warren Buffett
The tide continues to be far more important than the swimmers. – Warren Buffett
If a policeman follows you down the road for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket. – Charlie Munger
- Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team.
- Create organizational clarity (identity, values, mission, strategy, major goals, objectives, roles and responsibilities).
- Over-communicate organizational clarity.
- Reinforce organizational clarity through human systems.
Be cohesive.
Be clear.
Over-communicate.
Reinforce.
From “The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive,” by Patrick Lencioni
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. – Ernest Hemingway
The transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced both donors without love and recipients without gratitude. – Antonin Scalia
My definition of a film director is the man who presides over accidents. – Orson Welles
My life is my work, and vice versa, and I have always arranged it so as to be deliberately over-stretched. – Christopher Hitchens
Until you have done something for humanity you should be ashamed to die. – Horace Mann
The temptation to be ‘in’ ought to be rejected. – Christopher Hitchens
The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state. – Adam Michnik
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. – Salvador Dalí
We have just one idea. We’re born with it. Throughout our lives we develop it and nurture it. – Henri Matisse
What we acquire consciously allows us to express ourselves unconsciously with a certain depth. And the artist’s unconscious is made up of everything he sees and expresses pictorially, without thinking about it. – Henri Matisse
For me, perfection in art and life comes from this Biblical source. Without this spirit, the mechanism of logic and construction in art and life will not bear fruit. – Marc Chagall