Throughout the years, I have collected my favorite quotes and advice from books, e-mail newsletters, podcasts, etc. The items below are some of those nuggets I thought were worth saving.

Personal Growth & Learning

• The greatest teacher is called 'doing'.
• Confidence is built, not born.
• Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
• You are only as young as the last time you changed your mind.
• Am I willing to look foolish today so I can learn something that will make me better tomorrow?
• You're capable of more than you know. Don't be your own bottleneck.
• It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
• Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
• Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it.

Mindset & Perspective

• You do not experience life, you experience the life you focus on.
• We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.
• Reality is undefeated. Embrace it.
• Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change along with it.
• Know thyself.
• What might I be wrong about?
• One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming other people think the way we think.
• Focus on how you want your life to be, not how people perceive you.
• While you're busy fighting what is, you're blind to what could be.
• If you base your self-esteem on other people's approval, your confidence will always be unstable.

Productivity

• The secret to being productive is to work on the right thing - even if it's at a slow pace.
• You cannot limit the work so you must limit your hours. Your time, not the work, is the only thing you can manage.
• Long-term consistency trumps short term intensity.
• Effective planning turns a daunting item into a series of small, clear, manageable tasks.
• If you've been head-down on a task for too long, lift your head up to make sure you're going the right way.
• The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
• Make it as easy as possible to work as hard as you can.
• How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
• If your goal does not have a schedule, it is a dream.
• A rushed process is a failed process.
• Action cures fear.
• You get credit for action, not preparation.
• Do the simplest thing that works, then iterate.
• Keep busy. The worried person must lose himself in action, lest he wither in despair.
• Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
• Now, not how.
• Don't hide behind the big. Do the smallest thing possible.
• Make before you manage.
• To know and not to do is really not to know.
• Finish something. Anything. Stop researching, planning, and preparing to do the work and just do the work.
• The only way to truly know if any idea works is to test it. And if you're looking for the best idea, test everything.

Technical & Engineering

• Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
• The best code can't make up for poor data structures.
• Duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction.
• Premature optimization and abstraction is the root of all evil. As simple as possible, but not simpler.
• It is much easier to add features to reliable software, than it is to add reliability to featureful software.
• The worst sin of performance engineering is applying effort to unproven problems.
• No matter what it is about, when you feel a single technique is your silver bullet solution for everything...that's not engineering. That's a religion.

Relationships

• Relationships really are like a garden - if you don't tend to them, they wither.
• The easiest way to improve your relationship with anyone is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.
• Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn't have it.
• Connect first. Educate second.
• Lack of appreciation is where relationships go to die. Vocalize appreciation in the moment.
• When you avoid a hard conversation, you're taking on a debt that has to be repaid with interest.
• Say the thing you think you cannot say.
• Make the implicit explicit.
• The best way to get to yes in a negotiation is to truly understand what yes means for the other party.
• Good questions are asked with the desire to learn, and they are specific.

Peace & Well-being

• We suffer more in imagination than in reality.
• If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.
• No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.
• Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you.
• True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
• Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions.
• The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.
• You can be relaxed and dedicated. Just because you worry more, doesn't mean you care more.
• Never worry alone.
• In everything, love simplicity.

Problem Solving & Decision Making

• Problem-solving: 1. Write down a problem. 2. Think very hard. 3. Write down the solution.
• "How can we make this work?" instead of stopping at "This won't work because...".
• Is your reading and research supplementing your actions or substituting for them?
• Procrastinating? My current task is probably not defined or too wide in scope. Explicitly define the next step.
• Focus your energy on $10,000 solutions, not $1 problems.
• The foolish person winds up doing at the end what the smart person does at the beginning.
• Assume zero knowledge and infinite intelligence.
• Quick judgements are antithetical to curiosity.
• Complaints don't solve problems.
• You don't need the answer, but rather an attitude of curiosity.
• When we become overly attached to a premature version of the work, we do a disservice to the project's potential.
• In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.
• It's a healthy practice to approach our work with as few accepted rules, starting points, and limitations as possible.

Life Philosophy & Resilience

• There is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence.
• He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.
• He who indulges empty fears earns himself real fears.
• When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.
• Too much agreeableness is an act of self betrayal.
• He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.
• Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
• The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
• If you don't bring it with you, you won't find it there.
• The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.
• The grass isn't greener on the other side, the grass is greener where you water it.
• Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
• The part can never be well unless the whole is well.
• Less, but better.
• Priorities are like arms. If you think you have more than a couple, you're either lying or crazy.
• The man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.
• Focus only on results and win one time. Focus on systems and win again and again.
• There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
• Your behavior, not your opinions, will change the world.
• You get back what you give.

Leadership

• One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. People are not energized by pessimists.
• Fear of failure destroys creativity.
• Great is often a collection of very small things.
• You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do.

#random