What is a quote that permanently changed the way you think?

The one that sticks with me is “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”. (I’m sorry I can’t remember where I heard the quote).

I grew up in a place where a lot of people were addicted to drugs and alcohol and where poverty was pretty bad. I would see how they all encouraged each other to continue on their paths to self-destruction through their friendships, and I guess I was already quite picky about who my friends were but after hearing that quote I have definitely become more picky about friendships.

Then someone else once made a remark to me (which I can’t remember word for word to quote it) about watching crabs in a bucket, how they could all escape but they keep pulling each other down.

Those two quotes/concepts together have meant for me, friendship is never really a strong priority. I’m really not interested in feeling popular, and I don’t tend to struggle with loneliness because I see people all the time. I also have family members that I’m extremely close to. Especially my brother - who just gets me.

I grew up a bit of a loner and I struggled to make friends as a kid because I was super shy. People never realised I was shy because I was also super loud and talkative when I found people I felt comfortable talking to… but I generally won’t talk to new people unless they talk to me first. So maybe those quotes resonated because I was already destined to be a bit of a loner anyway and extremely selective with my friends… but I think when you think about how friendships can start to define the environments you choose to put yourself in, I think it’s a pretty life changing quote because perhaps you could change your life for the better, by changing the people you surround yourself by.

If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

Marjane Satrapi

"Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you'd be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become."

Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut, found on zenpencils.com

A second one from the webcomic "Order of the Stick":

"You're not a type! You're a person, a person who does stuff! If you want to be different, do different stuff! Look at me. I used to be a town guard, and then I decided I wanted to be a cleric. Did everyone I know tell me, "Oh, I don't really think you're the type to be a cleric"? Yes! Did I listen to them? No! If anyone tells you that you can't be better if you want to be, you punch them in their stupid judgy face! And you know what the best part is? When you make a change, everyone who meets you from that point on? Only knows the new version of you. And that's nice."

And a last one:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Benjamin Franklin, found in Civilization IV

Two Roman Stoics really left an impression on me.

> What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.

[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...

> The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.

[2] https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html#1

Perfection is attained not when there's nothing to add, but nothing to remove.

Antoine Saint Exupéry

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.

John gall

If software developers followed those mantra, instead of pursuing complexity like it's a good thing, software would be much much better and would be easier to maintain.

Everyday I am searching for code and solutions, and everyday I swear and curse at complexity. It doesn't look like it's taught at school.

It’s become kind of a meme, but Jocko’s “Good.” The idea being this: if you’re in a difficult situation and starting to complain about it or dislike the pain, reframe your attitude and embrace the difficulty. It’s popped into my mind in a variety of situations, ranging from walking in a snowstorm to being exhausted during a run.

In a deeper sense, it’s made me realize that a lot of our attitudes are socially conditioned and not actually what is “natural.”

"Freedom is sloppy. But since tyranny's the only guaranteed byproduct of those who insist on a perfect world, freedom will have to do." -- Bigby Wolf

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." –Alan Watts

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich

"If you accept conventional wisdom from conventional people living conventional lives, how can you expect to be anything but conventional?" - MJ DeMarco

"I had a peculiar feeling that it was a good thing for everything to be over. Like suddenly being free of everything. No wanting. No having to. Infinite darkness. No yesterday. No today. No tomorrow. Nothing." - Hannah, Dark S03 epilogue

"[Man] sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived." - Dalai Llama

“What are the 'riskiest' choices? Those that don’t allow you to become the person you want to be, to live your life full measure. Survey results confirm that people’s biggest fear is neither death (ranks third) nor public speaking (second) but failing to live a meaningful life. That’s our greatest fear, our biggest risk. And it all begins with not living your life.” - Mark Albion

"once you get the message, hang up the phone." terence mckenna

that alone made me quit all that drug stuff.

i still respect that other people need it for their own causes, but i have strong opinions on safety especially on addictive ones. i still find myself lucky i didn't got into addictive downward spiral with the things i got my hands on.

"Could you please stop whining?" by coworker. Changed my life the most.

This one keeps coming back to me, from Jacob Mikanowski on Tyler Cowen's podcast about Eastern Europe:

> It was a really different political economy in the ’70s and ’80s. You were not waiting to save up for an apartment; you were usually on a list that your parents put you on, and you were waiting to be granted the right to an apartment. You didn’t have a hope of a car. And jobs were — not exactly a crapshoot, but you were going to be assigned something.

You could actually start — if you went through college (even if you didn’t), you might be in a position to have a place to live and an income to support a family at 21, 22, and nothing much to save up for. No real way to save up, no real goal to save towards.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jacob-mikanowski...

I like it because it makes me think about what people want from life, and how people may behave differently (and the same) when their opportunities were so different.

Clearly in most ways things were worse, but I can't help feeling there would be something liberating about not being on the hedonistic treadmill your whole life

"Success has two letters: DO!"

Many people think success is luck and luck is on some kind of lottery-level probability.

While luck is a huge part of success, consistently doing things towards it increases the probability drastically.

You probably don't make 10million over night by a random pick, but you can certainly make 100k in a year by making a few regular educated guesses over the course of a year and realizing your ideas.

When I was ~14, I read a line from Grand Admiral Thrawn in the Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire. It's not especially profound, but the younger one is exposed to this mentality, the better.

> Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake, Ensign? Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.

So far in life, I've coped with annoyances better by guarding my inputs rather than attempting to control other peoples' outputs - My wording, but the concept will be as old as the hills.

Some I've seen, liked, and noted :

"Every action has its pleasures and its price" - Socrates

"Build a life you don't need to regularly escape from."

"Find the hard work you're willing to do."

“The graveyards are full of indispensable people”

Told to me by a more senior colleague at work when I was still wet behind the ears.

There are lots of quotes that I find inspirational, motivational, or generally useful in some way. But I'm not sure that I can come up with one off the cuff that "permanently changed the way I think." But this one probably comes about as close to meeting that bar as anything I can think of.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own. -- Bruce Lee

From indiehackers, 5+ years ago:

Don't believe for one moment that 5 hours on Product Hunt or anywhere else for that matter represents a serious marketing effort.

If you want to run a business rather just create stuff, your work has only just begun. In the light of Facebook and other social media revelations, the idea of a truly disposable email address which means your entire life is not analysed and spammed to death has to be worth something.

You haven't told anyone about it though. And I mean you shout from the rooftops every day and everywhere you can think of. You market. People are not going to come looking for you. You have to start approaching influencers, be seen and be heard everywhere you think your potential users might lurk.

And, by the way, everyone sees a million new ideas a day so you have to be consistent, appear to be permanent and appear to be solid. No-one is going to entrust communications with you if they think you are a small, one-man band with an idea and little else.

Time to start reading marketing articles and strategies and applying them.

And expect it to take time.

"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present,—I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?—But this is more pleasant.—Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which, is according to thy nature?"

Everything in moderation, including moderation

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/05/13/moderation/?amp=1

"If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies." -- Jon Stewart

sonder (uncountable) (neologism) The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it. For them, you are the distant car light, a silhouette in a window, a footprint on a beach, a trash next to the sidewalk.

“We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.” Stephen Covey

"Success is only rented, and the rent is due every day." -Hansi Flick, as Coach of FC Bayern Munich

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." (Goodhart's law)

Attention is a moral act: it creates, brings aspects of things into being, but in doing so makes others recede. What a thing is depends on who is attending to it, and in what way. The fact that a place is special to some because of its great peace and beauty may, by that very fact, make it for another a resource to exploit, in such a way that its peace and beauty are destroyed. Attention has consequences.

— Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary (2009)

"Only idiots refuse to change their minds" which i just learned is a quote of Brigitte Bardot

also "always think with your own brain" - my mom :P

"You don't earn what you deserve. You earn what you negotiate."

It was at a Toastmasters meeting, someone’s speech had the line:

[Most people spend their life trying not to lose something rather than reaching towards a new goal, so they become stuck.] Are you playing to win, or not to lose?

I keep referring to it with my career choices over the last few months - it’s getting me out of my hole and onto the ladder to find a new job.

"Chance favors the prepared mind" - Louis Pasteur

"Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watched. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest...he strikes" - Anonymous

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." - Kierkegaard

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus

(from memory)

From Ton Roosendaal (Blender) on a GSoC mailing list [1] some years ago that stuck with me and I always tell new hires or interns when they make mention of not having anything to show.

Something I also have to remind myself of every now and then when I spend days or weeks researching a topic without anything user facing to show during that time.

> You cannot spend time on something without having done something. Progress is not a requirement. If you spend time on learning something, report on what you learned, If you read a book, write a short summary of it. If you make demo files to test things, show the demo files and report on the tests.

[1] https://archive.blender.org/lists/soc-2017-dev/2017-July/000...

Chesterson's Fence: Noun. Chesterton's fence

The principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qPGbl2gxGqI

A happy person is not in a particular set of circumstances, but rather has a particular set of attitudes.

I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there -Richard Feynman

"The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man."

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

These are more mundane than the average.

I heard the phrase "Nutrient harvesting" on a no-dig gardening channel. Helped me reframe the mundane task of weeding in my garden. I'm now instead gathering nutrients for my plants as either local mulching or composting and it became a much more meaningful task.

"The way your childhood shaped you is an adaptive reaction to your environment that searched for the optimal solution to survive."

This is a reframing for bad or unwanted patterns you learned through childhood and still doing. Helped me forgive myself and accept the unwanted behaviours as something that was once necessary to stay afloat.

„What you can do, or dream you can, begin it, Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it, Only engage, and then the mind grows heated— Begin it, and the work will be completed!” - Goethe, Faust. Stuck in my head for over 20 years now.

"The first draft of anything is shit" – Ernest Hemingway (possibly apocryphal)

"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

“America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.“

-- e. e. cummings

“Everything complex that works is iterations of simpler things that worked”.

“Don’t judge your success by one final outcome, but the number of iterations it took to get there. Optimize for iteration”.

“We can do anything but we can’t do everything.” -Epic Games

It's easy to make something idiot proof, because idiots are easily discouraged; but, nothing will stop a demented fool with a screwdriver.

"Should I try to be a straight-A student?

If you are, then you think too much."--Billy Joel, "It's Still Rock'n'Roll to Me"

At first this led to a slacker attitude about education.

Then I realized that knowledge >>> ignorance.

The final conclusion is that credentials are as good as far as they go, but knowledge is key.

"Failing to plan is planning to fail" and "Your emergency is not my problem"

“Slow is Smooth; Smooth is Fast.”

never assume malice when incompetence could be the answer... (hanlon's razor)

Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome universe that utterly dwarfs, in time, in space, and in potential, the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.

- Carl Sagan

"he who makes a beast of ones self, rids the pain of being a man"

So much to say about human behavior here... Anyways, one should try it sometime, can be liberating even in small doses.

only care about what you can control

Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality. Kant

"If you want peace, prepare for war".

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Who among us has not felt,

When walking through the twilight,

Or writing down a date from the past,

That they have lost something infinite?

    -- Jorge Luis Borges

There is no way to peace, peace is the way

Es ist nicht deine Schuld, dass die Welt ist wie sie ist, doch es ist deine Schuld wenn sie so bleibt.

Don't run away from something. It will find you. Run towards something better. Pull works better than push.

Me.

Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

“Dream about running races, not about crossing the finish line.” – Benjamin P. Hardy

"To see with eyes unclouded by hate" - Ashitaka, Princess Mononoke

so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and quietly along the king's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,--pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?" - Laurence Sterne

“Never whistle while you’re pissing” - Robert Anton Wilson in Illuminatus trilogy.

Systems are built on systems.

“What is good in the short-term, is not necessarily good in the long-term.”

Anthony Bourdain

"Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face"

Mike Tyson

"Wishful thinking is the weakest form of hope."

I never saved anything for the swim back.

"90% of everything is crap"

If it smells like crap everywhere you walk, check your own shoes.

If it is to be

It is up to me

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday

Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin')