A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Memes on my list are copied from everywhere, as is the definition of a meme.
Happiness is a choice. There is always something wrong. You decide if you care.
The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.
Happiness comes more easily with a healthy body, loving relationships, and positive thoughts.
The purpose of life is to learn more about the universe. A life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn.
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Progress towards a goal is central to feeling good about life. There is always something to learn.
If you’re ever confused about what to do, do the right thing.
Care about making your best effort. Do not worry about the outcome.
How you spend every day is how you spend your life.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Assume people have good intentions.
Doing nice things for others is a great way to feel great.
There is no such thing as a small lapse of integrity.
Life is not a zero-sum game with a well-defined reward function. Stop acting like it is.
You are insignificant. The universe is infinite. That’s OK.
The imagination of the universe is far, far greater than the imagination of humans.
Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is always limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.
A thinker without paradox is like a lover without passion.
Black holes probably exist. If that doesn’t make you humble, nothing will.
All scientific theories are approximations of the universe.
What we observe is not reality itself but reality subjected to our method of questioning.
The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.
Scientific and technological progress shapes human civilization more than anything else.
The future is already here; it is just unevenly distributed.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
History remembers those who got to market first.
If you weren’t at Los Alamos in 1943, you probably thought nuclear weapons were 20 years away.
If you told someone in 1400 that the Earth rotates around the sun, they’d ridicule or burn you.
Always play the long game.
Useful lasts longer than cool.
Faster is always better.
Plan beats no plan, but done beats perfect.
Most decisions can be changed.
Ask yourself, “What is inevitable?”. Then act on the answer.
If the situation is unsustainable, and the options are impossible, the situation will win.
Are you on the fence about breaking up or leaving your job? You should probably go ahead and do it.
Risks are less risky than you think. Take as many as you can afford.
If you’re not failing, you’re not operating at the edge.
Working on the hardest problems requires an incredible amount of courage. Embrace uncertainty.
Exponential progress feels slow in the beginning.
Life is a flywheel. How do you become successful? Gradually, then suddenly.
Improvement comes in small increments over long periods.
Good things come to those who iterate.
Be the sort of person that suggests solutions rather than complains about problems.
Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.
Be busy building.
Always tell the truth. Better to shut up than to lie.
There is never enough money.
The marginal cost of happiness is very high.
Free-market democracy is currently our best option for creating good human living conditions.
There is never enough time.
Treat every object as an imposition upon your attention.
Establish clear rules about when to throw out old junk. Once clear rules are established, the junk will probably cease to be a problem.
Humans are tool builders, and the computer is the most remarkable tool we've built so far.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Achievement requires sacrifices. Everyone has different preferences. Find yours.
Great success requires great sacrifices. Most do not enjoy either.
Most people underestimate the power of hard work.
Hard work beats intelligence when intelligence doesn't work hard.
Most people underestimate the power of intelligence.
You cannot imagine what the world looks like for someone with a different intelligence. Telling someone with an 80 IQ to make more effort when presented with an IQ test is like telling a color-blind person to try harder when painting a Monet.
Intelligence is genetic and cannot be trained.
You can improve your communication skills and knowledge, not your intelligence.
Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you.
Life isn’t fair. Genes and geography define your starting point in life.
Luck, timing, intelligence, and hard work. In that order.
Luck favors the prepared.
Be a prolific creator. Write, paint, program. Whatever it is, do a lot of it.
If you want to have good ideas, you must have many ideas.
Doing a lot increases the chances of having great timing sometimes.
Hard-working, prolific optimists appear luckier.
Writing is recorded thinking. Companies require recordings.
Talk a lot about your feelings.
See a therapist.
Mediate. Trust me; it’s awesome.
Get medicated if it makes your life better.
We are frequently wrong about which mistakes we're making.
Most things are either power-law distributed or normally distributed.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Learn about risk-adjusted returns.
Value comes from scarcity. Find leverage.
Money is like manure; it's worthless unless spread around, encouraging young things to grow.
Ask for help, especially when you’re scared of asking for help.
Ask “why” a lot. When someone tells you a fact, ask, “Oh, why is that?”.
Do not care about who is right; care about what is right.
It’s better to be right than consistent. Successful people change their mind a lot.
A one-in-a-million outcome requires betting and luck.
The wealthiest people lose the most money.
The most connected people get rejected the most.
The most successful people fail the most.
Reach out. Assume everyone is a potential friend.
Solitary geniuses are a myth. Smart people learn from other smart people constantly.
We become the people whose opinions we care about.
Find great role models and mentors.
Small people belittle your ambitions, but the great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Cherish friends who tell you things that make you angry.
The less confident people are, the more serious they tend to act.
Some people create drama out of habit. You can avoid these people.
Reflect on what you’ve learned regularly. Preferably every day.
Humans run on stories. Learn to be a great storyteller.
Humans are emotional. Ask yourself, “How will others feel about this?”.
Ask, “How do I feel about my top goal?” not “What do I think about my top goal?”
Allow yourself to be bored sometimes. Ideas will present themselves.
Build an extensive network that you make time for regularly. Not just when you need it.
Cultivate a reputation for being dependable. Good reputations are valuable because they’re rare.
The more you know, the more easily you can see the next steps.
If you don’t have consistently scheduled time for your top goals, you don’t have top goals.
Seek ground truth and probe reality.
Be worried if you haven’t felt awkward recently.
If there’s something on your mind, write it down and get it out.
Surround yourself with people with high standards.
Read books that you enjoy reading, not books you should read.
Be as specific as possible.
What are you being a coward about? Be specific!
What are you ashamed of? Be specific!
What makes you angry? Be specific!
Let people tell you no. Don’t decide for them.
It is never ‘too late.’
Think about what you enjoy and why you enjoy it.
If you’re under 90, try new things.
Change breaks the brittle.
Long-term relationships are mostly spent just chilling.
Call your parents when you think of them, and tell your friends when you love them.
Compliment people. Most have trouble thinking of themselves as smart, pretty, or kind unless told by someone else. You can help them out.
If a group picks on someone, it’s tempting to join in. Resist this.
Don’t punish people for trying.
Remember that many people suffer invisibly.
Don't punish people for admitting they were wrong; you make it harder for them to improve.
Stay calm. It’s always better. Always act quickly. Faster is always better. Calm speed is possible.
You can’t improve what you can’t measure.
Done is better than perfect. Everything has an MVP.
Invest in tools. If most of your work is done using a laptop, get a great one. If you’re looking for your good X, you have bad Xs. Throw those out.
Learn keyboard shortcuts. You’ll get tasks done faster and easier.
Exercise. It’s not about weight or looks; it’s about mental health.
Discipline is superior to motivation. The former can be trained; the latter is fleeting. You won’t be able to accomplish great things if you only rely on motivation.
Sometimes all it takes to succeed is to be the last one standing.
Remember that you are dying.
Never give up.
Don’t die.