John R. Perry > Quotes

“When I was a young philosopher, I asked a senior colleague, Pat Suppes (then and now a famous philosopher of science and an astute student of human nature), what the secret of happiness was. Instead of giving me advice, he made a rather droll observation about what a lot of people who were happy with themselves seem to have done, namely:
1. Take a careful inventory of their shortcomings and flaws
2. Adopt a code of values that treats these things as virtues
3. Admire themselves for living up to it
Brutal people admire themselves for being manly; compulsive pedants admire themselves for their attention to detail; naturally selfish and mean people admire themselves for their dedication to helping the market reward talent and punish failure, and so on.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this negative trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, such as gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him to do it. The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely, and important tasks, however, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“I really have nothing against rationality, or even doing what you think is best, or doing what is more likely to satisfy your desires. I have tried these strategies at various times, occasionally with good results. But I think the ideal of the rational agent is the source of lots of needless unhappiness. It's not the way many of us operate; it's certainly not the way I operate. And operating the way we do usually works just fine, and really isn't a reason to hang our heads in shame and despair.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely, and important tasks, however, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“You have to get into the habit of forcing yourself to analyze, at the time you accept a task, the costs and benefits of doing a less-than-perfect job. You must ask yourself some questions: How useful would a perfect job be here? How much more useful would it be than a merely adequate job? Or even a half-assed job? And you’ve got to ask yourself: What is the probability that I will really do anything like a remotely perfect job on this? And: What difference will it make to me, and to others, whether I do or not?”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be, by definition, the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.”
― John Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“If you want to know what happiness is, you need to go to the philosophers. Start with the Wikipedia article “Philosophy of Happiness.” Then go to the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy, search for “happiness,” and follow through the articles that come up to see what various philosophers have said. Then read the philosophers’ works themselves. By the time you’re done, you’ll probably be dead, whether or not you are happy.”
― John Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“If you say you are adopting the Kaizen Way, rather than simply that you are trying to procrastinate less, you will sound like you have adopted a martial arts regimen. That’s kind of cool.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“If you want to stop procrastinating, it may be because you realize that procrastinating is making you unhappy. Perhaps you should go directly to the project of being happy and let procrastination take care of itself.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. —OSCAR WILDE”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“Why did God use Patrick to reach the people at the very ends of the earth? Because Patrick was sufficiently humble to serve the very barbarians whom the more sophisticated churchmen of his day wanted nothing to do with—and he was sufficiently rustic to relate to them. Whether or not Patrick understood this when he was first called back to Ireland, he clearly understood that Christ would be with him, praying on his behalf and answering his own prayers. So he moved forward.”
― John R. Perry, 10 Christians Everyone Should Know: Lives of the Faithful and What They Mean to You

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
― John R. Perry, Sport Psychology: A Complete Introduction

“Pat yourself on the back for what you do get done. Use to-do lists, alarm clocks, and other ways of booby-trapping your environment. Form collaborations that will prevent you from never accomplishing anything. Above all, enjoy life.”
― John R. Perry, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

“groundbreaking ceremonies. There had to be”
― John Perry, Sgt. York: His Life, Legend & Legacy

“The philosopher Ernst Mach once got on a bus, and saw a scruffy unkempt bookish-looking person at the far end. He thought to himself (1) That man is a shabby pedagogue. In fact, Mach was seeing himself in a large mirror at the far end of the bus, of the sort conductors used to help keep track of things. He eventually realized this, and thought to himself: (2) I am that man. (3) I am a shabby pedagogue.”
― John Perry