It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing.
Steve Jobs
I'm fine, I'm pretty fine
Anon
Impostor syndrome gets all the attention, but encore anxiety is its cruel foil: not the fear that you're a fraud, but the fear that you're genuine and still might not be able to prove it.
ANU, Encore Anxiety
Creation and preservation require fundamentally different mindsets, often at odds.Success creates a choice: protect what you've built or build what comes next. Part of creative growth is accepting that some people who loved your early work will hate what you become, and that's exactly as it should be. Disappoint people.
ANU, Encore Anxiety
The antidote to encore anxiety isn't caring less about your work or the people judging it, but caring more about truthseeking — whatever that means to you as the artist. When you're genuinely pursuing truth in your domain, the audience becomes secondary to the investigation. The work itself becomes more interesting than the watchers.
ANU, Encore Anxiety
Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.
Henry Matisse
Go all the way with it. For once, do not back off, go all the goddamn way with what matters.
Ernest Hemingway
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
André Gide
The problem is not people being uneducated. The problem is that people are educated just enough to believe what they have been taught, and not educated enough to question anything from what they have been taught.
Richard Feynman
It's not ignorance that limits us, but unexamined certainty. The challenge is to stay open even after we've learned the “right” answers.
Anon
Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done
Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework
People who take long vacations or even long lunch breaks are viewed as lazy or untrustworthy. We've all heard about the inevitable burnout that occurs when people work too much. But we quickly forget these cautionary tales and rationalize our habits, because we're afraid of what our lives will look like if we slow down and pay attention. Deep down, many of us wonder if we're wasting our time on things of little consequence. So we keep skittering along the surface at a feverish pace, avoiding the mirror of introspection.
Matt Steel
Your calling doesn't have to be your day job. If it's possible for you to blend the two, then fantastic — go for it with all of your might. There is honor in working a day job you don't love, as long as it allows you the time and space to pursue your soul's work on the side. But there is no honor and no love in fear
Matt Steel
the trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat
Lily Tomlin
Commit to a schedule you can sustain and tasks you can complete without killing yourself. No one will go into cardiac arrest if you turn down a project.
Matt Steel
multitasking isn't sexy. It's inefficient.
Matt Steel
...fears are stories we tell ourselves about futures that don't exist. We cannot defeat fear until we recognize it and name it. Fear is inevitable, but beware of fear gaining power in your life! Most unnecessary pain in the world can be traced back to fear. Fear loves to masquerade as prudence, wisdom, power, or moral outrage. Fear wears many faces. It lies, it lurks. So how can we fight it? First, by facing it long enough to understand it. Second, by filling our lives with love so that fear can no longer gain purchase. Third, by hunting it. Fear must be hunted with ruthless abandon. Hate it as one of the few things in existence that deserve your unmitigated contempt. The more you look for fear's shadowy tracks, the quicker you'll become at catching it before it takes control. Have courage. Your life depends on it.
Matt Steel
In business, as in war, surprise is worth as much as force.
Paul Graham
say what you mean and say it briefly.
Paul Graham
When you're forced to be simple, you're forced to face the real problem. When you can't deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.
Paul Graham
If it looks ugly, it will fly the same
Kelly Johnson
Today's experimental error is tomorrow's new theory. If you want to discover great new things, then instead of turning a blind eye to the places where conventional wisdom and truth don't quite meet, you should pay particular attention to them
Paul Graham
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
Tara Ploughman
I have never seen ordinary effort lead to extraordinary results.
Tara Ploughman
If you start a war, you don't get to choose how it ends.
Shashank Joshi
If you want to have good ideas, you must have many ideas.
Linus Pauling
Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.
Nat Friedman
Don't fear moving slowly. Fear standing still.
Nat Friedman
You can't say I didn't try really hard, 'cause I'm trying really hard to be good.
Tom Petty
Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.
Donald Knuth
In our world, you sink or swim, and there are no excuses.
Paul Graham on creating wealth
Someone graduating from college thinks, and is told, that he needs to get a job, as if the important thing were becoming a member of an institution. A more direct way to put it would be: you need to start doing something people want. You don't need to join a company to do that. All a company is is a group of people working together to do something people want. It's doing something people want that matters, not joining the group.
Paul Graham on creating wealth
To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect.
Paul Graham on creating wealth
If you're in a job that feels safe, you are not going to get rich, because if there is no danger there is almost certainly no leverage.
Paul Graham, Creating wealth
Remember that it is a proxy phrase, often born of an inability or unwillingness to articulate other concerns.
Eric Bailey, Quality is a Trap
It's like polishing silverware as the ship takes on water.
Andrew Barnard on Modern Design Awards
Four steps: choose a field, learn enough to get to the frontier, notice gaps, explore promising ones. This is how practically everyone who's done great work has done it, from painters to physicists.
Paul Graham, How to do great work
So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions.
Paul Graham, How to do great work
That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.
Paul Graham, How to do great work
because if you don't try to be the best, you won't even be good.
Paul Graham, How to do great work
if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Physics by Charles Riborg Mann and George Ransom Twiss
I write, because I have to. I want to stand for my thoughts and opinions, no matter how radical they may seem. I want to contribute to the discourse of this world, not to remain in fearful silence and wonder why the world hasn't gotten better. I want to publish my terrible poetry, among all the other bits I write, because I want to exist as a human being, not just by the virtue of what I do in my professional life or by the political beliefs I hold. What matters is not whether I'm remembered currently or posthumously, but whether I've done my best to exist in my lifetime. I want to exist as fully as possible, even if I'm the only one who sees it.
Winnie
There are hours in a day, and then there are your best hours. Your dreams demand your best hours.
ANU
The polish paradox is that the highest degrees of craft and quality are in the spaces we can't see, the places we don't necessarily look. Polish can't be an afterthought. It must be an integral part of the process, a commitment to excellence from the beginning. The unseen effort to perfect every hidden aspect elevates products from good to great.
Matt Ström-Awn
You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest where 2+2=5 and the path leading out is only wide enough for one
Mikhail Tal