Wise Words from Wise People (Oct 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 learn from books, articles, newsletters, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.

Here are the best quotes I found this month:

"Every thought a person dwells upon, whether he expresses it or not, either damages or improves his life." -Lucy Malory

"Standards without consequences are merely suggestions." -Gene Rivers

"People are not rational. They are rationalizing. Once you understand this simple fact, all the oddest human behavior will suddenly make way more sense." -Billy Markus

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” -George Orwell (Thanks to my dad for sharing this quote!)

“If you want a seat at the table, host the meal.” -Unknown

"If you can't control the situation, control your emotion." -Unknown

“You are never destroyed by anyone except yourself.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

"Entrepreneurship is nothing more than the ability to come up with ideas and the courage to try them out." -Noah Kagan

“You’ll know you have a world-class product when every customer brings you another customer.” -Gary Keller

“In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.” -Paul Allen

"Money is less about numbers and more about stories—stories we tell ourselves about what matters, what makes us happy, and how we measure success." -Morgan Housel

"There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former but spend their life chasing the latter." -Morgan Housel

"Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac!" -George Carlin

"The appetite for applause counts amongst the lowest of human character traits." -Jan-Willem van der Rijt

"Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it." -Daniel Kahneman

"Everyone is jealous of what you've got, no one is jealous of how you got it." -Jimmy Carr

“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” -Marcus Aurelius

"Envy is inversely correlated with self-examination. The less you know yourself, the more you look to others to get an idea of your worth. But the more you delve into who you are, the less you seek from others, and the dissolution of envy begins." -Lawrence Yeo

"We are built with an almost infinite capacity to believe things because the beliefs are advantageous for us to hold, rather than because they are even remotely related to the truth." -Dee Hock

"So much of success in life is finding the delicate balance of when optimism turns into greed and pessimism turns into fear." -Morgan Housel

“Wanting more information is often just a form of procrastination.” -Russ Roberts

“The greater the ignorance, the greater the dogmatism.” -William Osler

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” -Flannery O’Connor

"The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people." -Leo Tolstoy

"Your job as a leader is to teach people to think strategically. You don't do that by giving them answers. You do it by asking great questions." -Geoff Woods

"My religion is love to all living beings." -Leo Tolstoy

"When an arrow does not hit its target, the marksman blames himself, not another person. A wise man behaves in the same way." -Confucius

“Please keep your bare-minimum away from me. I want someone who sets my soul on fire, not just sparks.” -Case Kenny

"Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education." -Thomas Carlyle

"It is not the place we occupy which is important, but the direction in which we move." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

"A wise man seeks wisdom; a madman thinks that he has found it." -Persian proverb

"People don't resist change. They resist uncertainty." -Unknown

“If it’s easy, it won’t matter. If it matters, it won’t be easy.” -Gaurav Jain

"What we put in our brain, especially early on but also on a daily basis, forms a kind of bank balance that we will draw on in the future." -Ryan Holiday

"Imagine that you have died. Now take what's left of your life and live it properly." -Marcus Aurelius

"I would rather be an authority on myself than on Cicero." -Michel de Montaigne

"Books are the best provisions a man can take with him on life's journey." -Michel de Montaigne

"You will become wise when you begin to have conversations with the dead." -Priestess at Delphi, to Zeno

"There are many paths to wisdom, but nearly every one of them runs through books." -Ryan Holiday

"Curiosity, like gravity, is accelerative. The more you know, the more you want to know." -David McCullough

"A student in a hurry learns the slowest." -Samurai teacher, to Banzo

“Nothing is worse than running enthusiastically in the wrong direction.” -Keith Cunningham