Derek Sivers Quotes

Don’t loan money to a friend, or you’ll lose your money and your friend.
You’d be better off just giving them the money.
The return is the same ($0), but you’d skip the bad feelings.

You get healthy by learning healthy habits.
You get wealthy by learning valuable skills.
You build a great interpersonal life by learning people skills.
Most misery comes from not learning these things.

Don't be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.

Life can be improved by adding, or by subtracting. The world pushes us to add, because that benefits them. But the secret is to focus on subtracting.

Striving makes you happy.
Pursuit is the opposite of depression.
People at the end of their life, who said they were the happiest with their life, were the ones who had spent the most time in the flow of fascinating work.

Today’s discomfort brings future rewards.
When you have a clear view of the future, you won’t mind the small sacrifice.
You never regret not indulging.

Think of the comic heroes, like Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Chan, Jim Carrey, Kung Fu Panda, or Roberto Benigni in “Life Is Beautiful”.
They win by being playful, creative, adaptive, irreverent, and unbound by norms.
Those who take life too seriously are the opposite, and at a disadvantage.

The future is unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Picture all the things that could go wrong.
Prepare for each, so they won’t surprise or hurt you.

Most people don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own.

By not having any money to waste, you never waste money.

There’s a benefit to being naive about the norms of the world — deciding from scratch what seems like the right thing to do, instead of just doing what others do

Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work.

skip the art career and just do the art.

Making money isn’t evil, greedy, shallow, or vain.
Money isn’t your worth as a human being, or a substitute for love.
But don’t pretend it doesn’t matter.

Following rules is smart.
It’s efficient.
You don’t need to stop and re-think every situation.