A quote about leaving things for later:
Later is where excuses live. Later is where good intentions go to die. Later is a broken back and a bent spirit. Later says “all-nighters are temporary until we’ve got this figured out.” Unlikely. Make the change now. – It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work, by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson.
A second quote:
‘To-morrow’: sometimes it is prudence; very often it is the adverb of the defeated. – The Way, n. 251, by St. Josemaría Escrivá.
A quote from Brandon Sanderson’s novel Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds:
Psychology-as-superpower is a recurring theme in my works. I’ve always believed that the personality traits that make us each distinctive (the way we process information, the way we motivate ourselves, the way we shelter our psyche from the bad while learning to cherish the good) can be either our greatest strengths or our most dramatic limitations. How you see yourself, along with how you use what you have, often more important than talents, skills, or even supernatural abilities.”
Two quotes I took note of this week:
As the traveller who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own. — Margaret Mead, via Ma.tt
The best way to read quickly is to read lots. And lots. And to have started a long time ago. Then maybe you know what is coming in the current book. Reading quickly is often, in a margin-relevant way, close to not reading much at all.
-– Tyler Cowen, How to read fast
From Ryan Holiday’s Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts:
People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds. They want to make something timeless, but they focus instead on immediate payoffs and instant gratification. (…)
We focus on all the wrong metrics for measuring our success and, in the process, actually diminish our chances for longevity. Making a beloved classic that lasts for a hundred years may seem like a tall order. Fine, put that aside. What if we start by just trying to make something that lasts longer than average? (…)
We’re all selling ideas. Whatever the form, the process is the same. And if we get really good at it and we think about it the right way, our idea can sell forever, an infinite number of times. That’s the dream. To matter, to reach, to last. So let’s go get it.