The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.

Most people write to sound smart when they should write to be useful.

Communicating to sound smart lowers your potential for impact. The harder people have to work to understand you, the less they want your input.

Writing to be useful means writing what you would want to read. Simple, but not easy.

If you need 10 of something, make 30. Then pick the best.

Many people assume they are bad at writing because it is hard. This is like assuming you are bad at weightlifting because the weight is heavy.

Writing is useful because it is hard. It's the effort that goes into writing a clear sentence that leads to better thinking.

The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.

One of the most critical skills in life—and yet never taught in school—is choosing where to direct your attention.

After graduation, the valedictorian will often get lapped by "average" people who better invest their time.

People who want to appear clever rely on memory. People who want to get things done make lists.

When you first start to study a field, it seems like you have to memorize a zillion things. You don’t. What you need is to identify the core principles – generally three to twelve of them – that govern the field. The million things you thought you had to memorize are simply various combinations of the core principles.

Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.

"The earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." 
- Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC

If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because "you turned out fine," you did not in fact turn out fine.

Things you control:

Your effort.
Your beliefs.
Your actions.
Your attitude.
Your integrity.
Your thoughts.
The food you eat.
How kind you are.
How reflective you are.
How thoughtful you are.
The type of friend you are.
The information you consume.
The people you surround yourself with.

It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil, because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

For all its cruelties, civilization is precious, an experiment worth continuing. It is also precarious: as we climbed the ladder of progress, we kicked out the rungs below. There is no going back without catastrophe. Those who don’t like civilization, and can’t wait for it to fall on its arrogant face, should keep in mind that there is no other way to support humanity in anything like our present numbers or estate.

When the rich rob the poor it's called Business. When the poor fight back it's called Violence.

There seemed to be endless obstacles preventing me from living with my eyes open, but as I gradually followed up clue after clue it seemed that the root cause of them all was fear.

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true. The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.

One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless.

Awareness is often enough to motivate change.

Simply tracking your food intake will motivate you to alter it. Merely writing down your problems may spark ideas for possible solutions.

The process starts with seeing reality clearly.