It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. 

Complexity kills more companies than competition.

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

Life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

First you think you know, then you realize you don't, and finally you understand.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

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

Maxims:

1.     Constraints force deep understanding.
2.     Focus on the step, not the outcome.
3.     Nothing good has ever been invented by committee.
4.     Learning is the prize.
5.     Institutions, by default, reject anything that means existing beliefs are wrong.
6.     Happiness equals smiles minus frowns.
7.     Misplaced loyalty is a waste.
8.     Work alone on what matters if you must.
9.     Patience is underrated.
10.     Hold your ideas with the right grip. Let go of incorrect ideas.
11.     If it’s worth doing, it’s worth giving it 100%.
12.     Obsession isn’t a problem. It’s an advantage.
13.     Simplicity has the fewest moving parts.
14.     Time will do the work for you if you align with how the world works.
15.     Move with urgency. You can do it much faster than you think.
16.     Design around engineering, not marketing.
17.     Optimize for happiness, not fairness.
18.     You don’t have to run the company to be a co-founder.
19.     “It takes a lot of work to make something simple.”
20.     Obsess over customers.
21.     Don’t accept something because it’s the way it is.
22.     You win in the dark, when everyone else is partying or sleeping.
23.     The only way to understand is to get your hands dirty in the work.
24.     “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
25.     The best are always learning more.

The longer your memos, the less likely they are to be read by men who have the power to act on them.

I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

I think you ought to treat your spouse like you treat your friends. You clean your house for your friends, you make sure they’re taken care of. A spouse often comes second. So treat your spouse like their friends. Don’t just go halfway. If each spouse goes seventy-five percent of the way, it’s a perfect match.

The late Japanese puzzlemaker Maki Kaji expresses [the process of solving a puzzle] in beautifully succinct and poetic way:

? → !

Bafflement, wrestling, solution! That is the arc of puzzling— as well as much of art and life itself. (Side note: Has there ever been more brilliantly designed punctuation than the question mark turns and mystery. The exclamation point—so assertive and aggressive and final!)

Happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness.

The earth belongs… to the living. The dead have neither powers nor rights over it.