It’s a contradiction that we all deal with. That we all want to be successful people, but we also want to be happy people. The two of those run in almost diametric opposites to each other.

My definition of wisdom is knowing the long term consequences of your actions.

The people with the best judgment are among the least emotional.

Do everything you were going to do, but with less angst, less suffering, less emotion. Everything takes time.

I think almost everything about humans and human civilization is explained better by evolution than anything else.

I think it just helps to be very aware that fundamentally, there are no adults. Everyone is making it up as they go along. You have to find your own path, picking, choosing, taking and discarding as you see fit.

The best relationships are peer relationships. When given power over others, our ego justifies it by assuming we are smarter. Better to have people work with us than for us.

Think clearly from the ground up. Understand and explain from first principles. Ignore society and politics. Acknowledge what you have. Control your emotions.

Don’t return it, give it away. Don’t keep fixing it, create something new. Don’t force the relationship, find someone else.

If you want to be successful, surround yourself with people who are more successful than you are. If you want to be happy, surround yourself with people who are less successful.

Knowledge is discovered by all of us, each adding to the whole. Wisdom is rediscovered by each of us, one at a time.

My 50-year-old self is going to say chill out, relax, don’t stress so much, live in the moment. It will all be all right.

You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it.

You realize just how precious life is and how it’s important to make sure that you enjoy yourself, you sleep well at night, you’re a good moral person, you’re generally happy, you take care of other people, you help out, but you can’t take it too seriously.

Just focus on the one or two really really important things, and everything else, just surrender to it. Just take it as it comes. Just accept it. Be glad with it. Be happy that you’re in this world.

Anger is a loss of control over the situation, and it is a contract that you’re making with yourself — that you’re going to literally be in physical and mental and emotional turmoil.

Morality and ethics automatically emerge when we realize the long term consequences of our actions.

In general, avoid getting into situations where you’re sacrificing today for an imagined tomorrow.

All real success is internal and has very little to do with external circumstances.

When I look back on my life, I want to say I saw the world the way it was.

I can give glib answers all day long, but you have to discover your own personal answer.

People spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing

More drugs are taken to quiet the mind than to heal the body.

Guilt is society’s voice speaking in your head.

Self-image is the prison. Other people are the guards.

On what he wants to be remembered for: Don’t care. I’ll be dead.

We are biological machines programmed to survive and replicate. Happy is anti-evolution.

Is it so important to me that I be unhappy unless this goes my way?

If raising children was less rewarding than not doing it, the human race would have gone extinct.

When you look at the greatest artists and creators, they have this ability to start over that nobody else does.

You have social statisticians, scientists, and researchers in lab coats, literally the best minds of our generation figuring out how to addict you to the news. And if you fall for it, if you get addicted. your brain will get destroyed. 

Suffering is a moment of clarity, when you can no longer deny the truth of a situation and are forced into uncomfortable change. Inside suffering is the seed of change.

Humans are always signaling. Rather than really looking at yourself, you’re looking at how other people look at you.

It’s kind of a disease – social media is making celebrities of all of us and celebrities are the most miserable people in the world.

Modern society will shame you for earning money, shame you for being happy, shame you for being raised well, shame you for having children, and ultimately, shame you for existing. It isn’t just religion that controls you by declaring you a sinner.

Reality is neutral. Reality has no judgments. To a tree, there’s no concept of right or wrong or good or bad. You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences… and then you die. How you choose to interpret that is up to you. And you do have that choice.

If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially and morally bankrupt.

The most powerful people in the world today are the people who are writing the algorithms for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because they’re controlling the spread of information. They’re programming the culture.

Involve groups in the creative process and you inevitably end up with a pile of pleasing, socially-acceptable lies. Contrast blockbuster movies with the great books.

The fundamental insecurity – most people need faith in something – religion, government, academia. Few are comfortable with decentralized systems.

We’re used to constantly judging things. The act of judging something separates you from that thing.

Over time, as you judge, judge, judge, you invariably judge people. You judge yourself. You separate yourself from everything, and then you end up lonely.

That feeling of disconnection, loneliness, is eventually what leads to suffering.

Judgment allows us to move through the world, but it’s also what separates us from one another. If I’m judging my friends and family, I’m separating myself from them. I’m creating a gap between us by putting them down and propping myself up.

The universe has been around for a long time, and the universe is a very, very large place. If you’ll study even the smallest bit of science, for all practical purposes we are nothing. We are ameba. We are bacteria to the universe.

This universe has been around probably for 10 billion years or more, and will be around for tens of billions of years afterwards. Your existence, my existence is just infinitesimal. It’s like a firefly blinking once in the night.

When you’re on your death bed, when you’re on your last day, you’d give up every dollar in the bank for a few days, another hour, another minute.

We don’t always get what we want, but sometimes what is happening is for the best. The sooner you can accept it as a reality, the sooner you can adapt to it.

I do everything for me. I don’t do anything for other people. None of us do. I think we all like to pretend like we’re doing everything for other people, but the reality is, we’re always just doing it for ourselves. That’s just the truth, and so whenever people ask me why did I do X or Y or Z, it’s always for me; that’s why I did it.

I kind of feel like every moment is a death. You can’t go back to the past; no one’s ever gone back even a second. I don’t even remember what I said two minutes ago.