Kevin Kelly Quotes

American author and co-founder of Wired magazine

Kevin Kelly (born 1952) is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog. Kelly is considered an expert in digital culture, and is said to have helped make technology part of popular culture.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A good sign that you are doing the kind of work you should be doing is that you enjoy the tedious parts that other people find torturous.

Very small things accumulate until they define your larger life. Carefully choose your everyday things.

Interview your parents while they are still alive. Keep asking questions while you record. You’ll learn amazing things. Or hire someone to make their story into an oral history, or documentary, or book. This will be a tremendous gift to them and to your family.

Discover people whom you love doing “nothing” with, and do nothing with them on a regular basis. The longer you can maintain those relationships, the longer you will live.

The highest form of wealth is deciding you have enough.

Don’t save up the good stuff (fancy wine, or china) for that rare occasion that will never happen; instead use them whenever you can.

Read a lot of history so you can understand how weird the past was; that way you will be comfortable with how weird the future will be.

Be more generous than necessary. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving too much away. There is no point to being the richest person in the cemetery.

In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong. A good question to ask yourself today is, “What might I be wrong about?” This is the only worry worth having.

You’ll never meet a very successful pessimistic person. If you want to be remarkable, get better at being optimistic.

In all things—except love—start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.

Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become.

Avoid making any kind of important decision when you are either hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT). Just halt when you are HALT.

The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth to flossing.

Paradoxically, the worst evils in the world are committed by those who truly believe they are combating evil. Be extremely vigilant with yourself when facing evil.