Quotes

Remember, as light means the absence of darkness and knowledge means the absence of ignorance, good should be defined as the absence of bad. Similarly, success means the absence of failure; keeping one’s distance from the ignorant is equivalent to keeping company with the wise.

Everything you don’t tell me, my intuition will.

I need to create what wants to be created, regardless of anything or anyone. Sometimes I will perform badly, I'll write badly, I'll film badly. But I have a right to do that to get to the other side.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

When we recognize true taste, we are recognizing that alchemic combination of skill and soul. This is why it is so alluring.

It's easy to unconsciously change how you see yourself based on what other people reward. The world will tell you who you are. Doesn't mean they're right.

I am the observer, the overseer, the leader — anchored at the seat of consciousness, guiding my own inner shadow work.

I have led a toothless life, he thought. A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on—and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone.

Your gift will never feel like a gift to you. It feels too easy, too obvious—like a secret everyone should know but somehow doesn't. But that's exactly why it's your gift: it's not anybody else's.

Who am I being, that my children's eyes are not shining? Who are we being, as we go back out into the world? I have a definition of success... it's not wealth and fame and power, it's about how many shining eyes I have around me.

If you do not hear today, life will whisper again tomorrow.

If you rehearse doubt, you will perform failure.

Almost everything will start working again if you unplug it for a few minutes… including you.

Keeping you at a disadvantage is an advantage I'd like to keep.

Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.

There's a problem with the term nature, as if we're not apart of her.

The time will pass anyway…

Obsessing over the details some people notice consciously, and that everyone notices subconsciously.

I like the wisdom of age, and the enthusiasm of youth.

He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool — shun him.
He who knows and knows not he knows is asleep — awaken him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is hungry — feed him.
He who knows and knows he knows not is wise — follow him.

Take care of the minutes; the hours will take care of themselves.

Ignite the light within you—there is none at the end of the tunnel.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel—ignite the torch you're carrying.

I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

The purpose of life is to find your gift, but the meaning of life is to give it away.

If your happiness disappears the moment the pleasure does, it was never happiness. It was just anesthesia.

Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

If you don't make it a priority to actively/consciously learn through AI, it'll end up only learning from you.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose—and commit oneself to—what is most deeply meaningful. True liberty exists not in escape, but in purposeful engagement.

It's not the notes you play; it's the notes you don't play.

Excellence is not an aspiration; excellence is the next five minutes.

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to myself.

Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

All sins are attempts to fill voids. True virtue lies in the recognition and acceptance of one's own emptiness, without desperately trying to fill it.

One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers from what he fears.

And in a world racing toward super-intelligence, the real flex isn't thinking like a machine—it's staying boldly, rebelliously, brilliantly flawed and weirdly human—while leveraging the machines.

Everyone you entertain after me will have to know me to understand you.

Perfectionists are not driven by the pursuit of perfection, they're driven by the avoidance of failure.

You may delay, but time will not.

I prefer to keep an empty stomach until the hard part of the day is done.

Keep it private… 'til it's permanent.

Reality denied comes back to haunt.

You can't appreciate today if you don't understand yesterday.

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

A man is whatever room he is in.

Death twitches my ear. "Live," he says, "I am coming."

It's about connecting your passion to something higher than yourself.

He saw beyond what I could see… You saw what you were supposed to see.

Opportunity is not when we take what's left over, opportunity is when we take what we want.

Hate is nature's most perfect energy source, endlessly renewable.

It's important to be kind, but if you design your society around the sensitivities of its most neurotic members, you end up with a neurotic society. That's no good for anyone.

Because I carry it well, doesn't mean that it ain't heavy.

May you realize your own divinity in this lifetime.

Once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in everything.

Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

Your success depends on the risks you take.
Your survival depends on the risks you avoid.

We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences.

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's own garden.

It's always the qualities that make you, that break you.

Your talent will take you where your character can't sustain.

Die young as late as possible.

Tough times never last, only tough people last.

We cannot predict the value our work will provide to the world. That's fine. It is not our job to judge our own work. It is our job to create it, to pour ourselves into it, and to master our craft as best we can.

You can either be judged because you created something or ignored because you left your greatness inside of you. Your call.

Never cut what you can untie.

Hard work is never so hard when it's done with love.

If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive.

Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Don't think about making art; just get it done.

The sooner you can be you, the sooner people looking for you will find you…

Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.