Top 15 Kevin Kelly Quotes

When you are young, spend at least 6 months to 1 year living as cheaply as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent. That way any time you have to risk something in the future, you won’t be afraid of the “worst-case” scenario.

Courtesy costs nothing. When you borrow something, return it cleaned. Lower the toilet seat after use. Let the car in front of you merge. Return shopping carts to their designated areas. Let the people in the elevator exit before you enter. These courtesies are free.

Invent as many family rituals as you can handle with ease. Anything done on a schedule—large or small, significant or silly—can become a ritual. Repeated consistently, small routines become legendary. Anticipation is key.

Efficiency is highly overrated; goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks, and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.

At first, buy the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.

Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore the multitude of problems we create; you just have to imagine how much our ability to solve problems improves.

When speaking to an audience, pause frequently. Pause before you say something in a new way, pause after you have said something you believe is important, and pause as a relief to let listeners absorb details. #excellentadvice

If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another, you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself, your conclusions will not be predictable.

Don’t let someone else’s urgency become your emergency. In fact, don’t be governed by the urgent of any sort. Focus on the important. The urgent is a tyrant. The important should be your king. Down with the tyranny of the urgent!

People will give you permission to do all kinds of things if you wear a yellow safety vest.

Be prepared: When you have 90% of a large project completed, finishing the final details will take another 90%. Houses and films are famous for having two 90%s.

If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table rather than a taller fence.

Take one simple thing—almost anything—but take it extremely seriously, as if it is the only thing in the world—or maybe the entire world is in it—and by taking it seriously you’ll light up the sky.

The fact that you “can’t do” something can be embarrassing. But if you are “learning to do” something, that is admirable. There are only tiny baby steps between can’t and learning.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Miraculous things can be accomplished if you give it 10 years. A long game will compound small gains that will be able to overcome even big mistakes.