Peter Atkins > Quotes

“When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“The lesson to me is that you can focus on something going well, or something beautiful, or something interesting -- even amidst terrible times.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Focusing on what matters means saying no to things that don’t matter. Otherwise, your life becomes cluttered with distractions.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“The trick is people who are most productive tend to say no to things that are unimportant to them and focus on what they believe matters.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Proceeding when there are obvious issues is a dumb thing to do. Even if it’s inconvenient or painful, I’ve learned, I’m better off doing nothing when the only available choice has glaring issues.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Of course, activity by itself doesn’t equal accomplishment, and certainly not success -- being busy just means being busy. I know many people who work super hard to fill up the spaces in their lives, so they won’t have to think. A wise colleague calls this “numbing out”. They may accomplish their goals, but they’re unlikely to be fulfilled or do truly creative work. I know other people who fill their free time with meaningless activities. They’re also busy, but they neither achieve much, nor are they satisfied.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“This matters. Real friends - people you trust, respect, laugh with, and can rely on - are a vitally important part of life. No matter how much wealth or fame you accumulate, if you don’t have true friends it’s unlikely you’ll be happy. Sadly I know too many people who have achieved their material goals, but have no friends. As the expression goes: greed is a hole you can never fill”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“1. Create space. 2. Try not to worry. 3. Don't do really dumb things. 4. Build character and make friends. 5. Care for yourself and others. 6. Laugh. 7. Do what you love. 8. Embrace change. 9. Learn from experience. 10. Have dreams and work towards them. 11. Epilogue. 12. Afterword - the world beyond us. 13. Acknowledgements.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“To allow yourself time to think, there are many non- technological tricks to managing information. All of them require you to make choices to focus your energy. I like to set aside blocks of time for specific activities - even to read or chat.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“I try to put things into two buckets: one I can do something about and one I can’t. The things I can’t do anything about, I try to ignore. There’s no use, for example, being jealous of other people’s success or good luck; it won’t make me any happier. Nor is there any upside in worrying about a bad situation in which I find myself. There is, however, a lot to be gained from considering how I can move to a better place.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“How many movies have you seen where the hero or heroine quits a job they hate to pursue their life dreams? These movies wouldn’t be made, and they wouldn’t resonate with so many people, if they didn’t contain an important desire that most people deny themselves.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Laugh. We’re all going to be dead anyway some day. So while you should try your hardest to make the most of your life, when something funny happens, when you make a mistake, or even (and perhaps especially) when bad things happen, it’s easier if you can laugh about yourself and the world.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with. -- Mark Twain”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In other words, just because something happened once doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen again in the same way.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“As Winston Churchill said: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“denial – is common. Most of us ignore reality in some facet of our lives. It’s often easier to believe things will somehow solve themselves,”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Know yourself. To be happy, you need to pay attention to who you are, what you want, and how you feel, versus staying busy just doing ’stuff,’or doing what other people want or expect you to do. This requires both self awareness and introspection: if you pay attention to how you feel, what you like and what you want (as well as what makes you feel sad, angry, fearful and confused), the world is likely to look quite different. Many people are afraid of being introspective because they feel vulnerable. But without a willingness to open up, you won’t understand yourself and you can’t ultimately be truly happy.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“It’s tempting to ascribe things to poor luck that were the result of your dumb decisions. The opposite is also true: sometimes you can get wonderful outcomes from terrible decisions. Although it’s incredibly hard to do, it’s also useful to see if you can identify mistakes you’ve made even when things work out as well as, or better than, you expect.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“If you live your life authentically, keep your word, admit mistakes, and admit what you don’t know, you’ll find people will trust you more over time, and you’ll become wiser too.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Character is like a tree, and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Do what you think is right. Don't follow other people blindly. Be honest and keep your word. Admit your mistakes.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. - Thomas Jefferson”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“We’re fools whether we dance or not -- so we might as well dance.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Ideally, you want a job you’d do even if you weren’t paid to do it. That’s not an economic reality for most of us, but it’s the right goal to shoot for.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“There’s a Japanese proverb that gets right to the point: We’re fools whether we dance or not -- so we might as well dance.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“I try to put things into two buckets: one I can do something about and one I can’t. The things I can’t do anything about, I try to ignore.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“I’ve found you can choose to let all the things that go wrong in life depress you. Or, you can accept that things will go wrong, try to laugh, and then look at what you can do. There’s a Japanese proverb that gets right to the point: We’re fools whether we dance or not -- so we might as well dance.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book

“Judgment and wisdom matter a great deal. And both require experience and, really, failure.”
― Peter Atkins, Life Is Short And So Is This Book