I’m a quote collector — if not a quote hoarder.
When I hear a good one, I pocket it before it has a chance to fly away.
But great quotes need to be shared.
For this piece, I dumped my digital jar of captured quotes (including some ideas of my own) into ChatGPT and asked it to organize them by theme.
Without further ado, here are quotes I liked well enough to file away, organized for your convenience.
Work Ethic and Personal Development
“The reward for good work is more work.” — Tom Sachs
“If you do it for a couple years, it’s an interest; for five years, it’s a hobby. But when you do something for 20 years, it becomes a part of your life and you become a part of it.” — Tom Sachs
“It’s not how you tell it — it’s what you tell….Shift all of your focus from how you’re doing something to what you’re doing.” — Casey Neistat
“Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.” — Epictetus
“The debt we owe our parents we pay to our children.” — Van Neistat
“Your life’s purpose might not be your career.” — Van Neistat
“Most setbacks are just bicep curls for your resourcefulness.” — Ken Lane
“You’d be amazed at how little it takes to get to a meaningful life.” — Patrick Rhone
Mindset and Perspective
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” — Epictetus
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” — Marcus Aurelius
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.” — Marcus Aurelius
“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.” -Marcus Aurelius
“What you do at age 40 will determine what you can do at age 80 or 90.” — Lewis Hollander, 90-year-old Ironman triathlete
“You become what you give your attention to…If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.” -Epictetus
“Comparison is not only the thief of joy, but the wave we attempt to outswim.” — Ken Lane
“Addiction is a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure. A good life is the progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure.” — Dr. Andrew Huberman
Happiness and Contentment
“Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.” — Epictetus
“Unremarkable lives are marked by the fear of not looking capable when trying something new.” — Epictetus
“Happiness is an inside job.” — William Arthur Ward
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” — Marcus Aurelius
“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.” — Seneca the Younger
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” — Epictetus
Self-Control and Personal Agency
“Your thoughts are not orders. Merely suggestions. You have the power to choose which option to follow.” — James Clear
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.” — Marcus Aurelius
“There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” — Epictetus
“Do not seek external approval. Do not worry about anything outside of your control. The only things you command are your thoughts and actions. We choose our response. Stop aspiring to be anyone other than your own best self: for that does fall within your control.” — Epictetus
“You can be happy if you know this secret: Some things are within your power to control and some things are not.” — Epictetus
Perception and Opinion of Others
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Don’t be concerned with other people’s impressions of you. They are dazzled and deluded by appearances. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence.” — Epictetus
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Don’t let them tell you who you are.” — Kings of Convenience, Rumours
Life Philosophy and Wisdom
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” — William Arthur Ward
“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.” — Henry David Thoreau
“Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favors you have received.” — Seneca
“In between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, in our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Dr. Benjy Epstein
“Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present…. even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.” — Alan Watts
“…the future is a concept — it doesn’t exist. As the proverb says, ‘Tomorrow never comes.’ There is no such thing as tomorrow — there never will be because time is always now.” — Alan Watts
“If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it to yourself.” — Seneca the Younger
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” — Gilbert K. Chesterton
“God has entrusted me with myself.” — Epictetus
“God is always present. The question is, how present are we?” — Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’” — Hunter S. Thompson
“When you die, it will not be because you are sick, but because you were alive.” — Seneca
“All this clutter used to be money, and all that money used to be time.” — Anonymous
“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.” — Epictetus
“When somewhere familiar to you feels exotic, you’re winning.” — Beau Miles
“I knew aerobic exercise was a powerful antidepressant, but I hadn’t realized it could be so profoundly mood stabilizing and — I hate to use the word — meditative. If you don’t have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain’t getting them.” — Christopher McDougall, Born to Run
“Aside from the intrinsic joy that training hard brings with it, every minute of the day that ensues is suffused with joy. Food tastes like manna from heaven. A kiss or a cuddle from your daughter — it feels like the touch of an angel. Everything is enhanced if you train first.” — Max Edwards, Founder of Busy Dad Training, just after completing training personal record on his 36th birthday
“He who indulges in empty fears earns himself real fears.” — Seneca
“We have made absorption in the future and in the past such an overriding habit that, much of the time, we have no awareness of the present moment at all.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn
“You have a great past ahead of you.” — Curtis Imrie, Running With Sherman
As 2023 comes to a close, my prayer is that some of these pieces wisdom helps you navigate 2024.
Originally from kenlane.substack.com.
