📶 Things Smart People Have Said

“Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

"Someone interested in power tends to be better at execution; someone interested in money tends to think more about capital efficiency. Avoid people interested in fame."

“You are more stupid being right with a dumb argument than wrong with a good one.”

“Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.” 

“My idea of shooting a fish in a barrel is draining the barrel first.”

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 

“Capitalism without failure is like religion without hell.”

“He who works all day has no time to make money.”

 “All professions are a conspiracy against the laity.”

“Competition proceeds scarcity. Not the other way around. Things are scarce because first we desire them.”

“The right kind of leisure is better than the wrong kind of work.” 

“There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.”

“There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.”

"All things being equal people buy from their friends. So make everything else equal then go make a lot of friends."

“Those who are skilled at producing surprises will win.”

"This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, their arteries harden. Every year there are more referees and fewer doers. When you've had success for too long, you lose the desire to take risks."

“Lust kills the man. Dishonor kills the warrior. Lack of discipline kills the legend.”

“The higher the monkey climbs on the pole, the more you can see its ass.”

“The highest form of creativity is found by improvising within a set of restrictions.”

"You are advertising to a moving parade, not a standing army."

“When I first entered the business world, i often heard that a person who wants to climb to the peak needs to make a lot of sacrifices. However, as the years passed, I began to understand that many people who were climbing to the top were not “paying the price.” They work hard because they really like work.”

“If communication can fail, it will. If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm.”

“A mistake is a future benefit, the full value of which is yet to be realized.”

"When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated. You begin to understand that writing/reading is, above all, a transaction. The reader donates his time and attention, which are supremely valuable commodities. In return, you the writer must give him something worthy of his gift to you.”

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

“A flower is a weed with an advertising budget.”

“Bubbles happen when confidence (a good trait), optimism (a good trait), trust (generally good) mix to form greed and delusion.”

“Three legal investment strategies: Be smarter than others, be luckier than others, be more patient than others. That’s the whole list.”

“You can't get unfamous. You can get infamous but you can't get unfamous.”

“These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized."

“You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

“Calm seas never made a sailor.”

“Good thinking is expensive. Bad thinking costs a fortune.”

“Failure always happens faster than the progress that preceded it.”

“It is not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know… that really isn’t so.”

“Being right doesn’t lead to superior performance if the consenses forecast is also right.”

“Good judgement comes from experience, but unfortunately, experience comes from bad judgement.”

“The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”

“Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.”

“The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game.”

“I enjoy the hunt much more than the 'good life' after the victory.”