Wise Words from Wise People (Dec 2025 Edition)

I’ve collected quotes for many years. My database now contains thousands of them, and every month I add the best ones I find in books, articles, newsletters, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.

Shout-out to Polina Pompliano because many of my favorite quotes I stumbled across in December came from her book Hidden Genius.

Here are the best quotes I found this month:

“There is someone somewhere who is looking at you and learning from you. You can be extraordinary in the most normal occasions and settings.” -Kyle Carpenter (Medal of Honor recipient)

“Stories trigger emotion, and emotion triggers memory.” -Polina Pompliano

“Suffering is universal. But victimhood is optional.” -Edith Eva Eger (Holocaust survivor)

“My definition of success is waking up energized and going to bed exhausted. Waking up energized means I’m doing meaningful things with people I love. Going to bed exhausted means I gave my all for those things. That’s a good life.” -Sahil Bloom

“’Small things often’ is so much more important than ‘big things occasionally.’” -John Gottman, about acts of love for a partner

“Great stories happen to those that can tell them.” -Ira Glass

“Fear is just a symptom of lack of preparation. The best antidote for fear is competence.” -Astronaut Chris Hadfield

“Make reversible decisions quickly and irreversible ones deliberately.” -Toni Schneider

“If your experiment works perfectly, then you’ve learned nothing.” -College professor, to Franklin Chang Diaz

“To really know pain in other people is to know yourself in them.” -Brandon Stanton

“Sometimes, to jump farther, you have to step back.” -French proverb

“I know that if I fail, I can start over and over and over and over. I have that skill, and you can take everything from me, but you cannot take that.” -Francis Ngannou, UFC Heavyweight Champion

“I don’t like to gamble, but if there is one thing I’m willing to bet on, it’s myself.” -Beyoncé

“Every time you slap a label on someone and put them in a box, you filter what you see. You make your world smaller, simpler, and less reflective of reality. -Polina Pompliano

“Wealth is what you don’t see. It’s the cars not purchased, the clothes not bought, the jewelry not worn. Wealth is hidden.” -Morgan Housel

“The opposite of happiness isn’t unhappiness; it’s taking things for granted.” -Mark Manson

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” -Mother Theresa

“Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary.” -Uta Hagen

“All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away.” -Peter Bailey (from It’s a Wonderful Life)

“I got my start by giving myself a start.” -Madam CJ Walker

“The mark of a true professional isn’t flawless performance in familiar territory—it’s the willingness to become a student again at the edges of your competence.” -Jonathan Goodman

“Students, scientists, and anyone else who lets AI do the writing for them will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.” -Derek Thompson

“The one-two punch of reading and writing is like the serum we have to take in a superhero comic book to gain the superpower of deep symbolic thinking, and so I have been ringing this alarm bell that we have to keep taking the serum.” -Cal Newport