Kyle La Perle > Kyle's Quotes

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“The three stages of career development are:
1. I want to be in the meeting
2. I want to run the meeting
3. I want to avoid meetings”
― Jay Ferro

“An unknown but certainly significant proportion of the population has almost completely given up on learning. These people seldom, if ever engage in deliberate learning and see themselves as neither competent at it nor likely to enjoy it. The social and personal cost is enormous.

Although negative self-images can be overcome, in the life of an individual they are extremely robust and powerfully self-reinforcing. Deficiency becomes identity: “I can’t learn French, I don’t have an ear for languages;” “I could never be a businessman, I don’t have a head for figures;”…

If people believe firmly enough that they cannot do math, they will usually succeed in preventing themselves from doing whatever they recognize as math. The consequences of such self-sabotage is personal failure, and each failure reinforces the original belief. And such beliefs may be most insidious when held not only by individuals, but by our entire culture.”
― Seymour Papert

“When you choose your friends today, you are choosing your habits tomorrow.”
― James Clear

“It's easier to optimize a modest start than to begin with a perfect start. Starting is the hard part, so start small and get in the mix. You'll learn a lot and you'll realize you don't need to have it all figured out to begin.”
― James Clear

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If you're in doubt about something that's not in your life, try it. Things are so different in practice versus in theory. The only way to know is to experience it yourself. ... Err on the side of yes. Try it. If it was a mistake, at least you’ll know first-hand, instead of always wondering.

If you're in doubt about something that's in your life already, get rid of it. Not just things, this goes for identities, habits, goals, relationships, technology, and anything else. Default to not having it, then see how you do without. ... Err on the side of no. Get rid of it. Start with a clean slate. If it was a mistake, you'll get it back with a renewed enthusiasm.”
― Derek Sivers

“You will love whatever you pour your heart into. Passion follows commitment.”
― James Clear

“If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures; if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures”
― Musonius Rufus

“I have learned that whenever I think "I don't have enough time to do that" what I usually mean is "I don't have enough energy" or "I am not actually interested in doing this."

What I need to do a better job of is not managing my time, but rather caring for myself and identifying my true interests. When I am well rested and working on something I am genuinely excited about, finding time is rarely a problem.”
― James Clear

“Corrie ten Boom once said that if the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy. There’s truth in that. Both sin and busyness have the exact same effect—they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul. The famous psychologist Carl Jung had this little saying: Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”
― John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World

“You don't need to worry about progressing slowly. You need to worry about climbing the wrong mountain.”
― James Clear

“Mastery is not only about getting better at your craft, but also about finding ways to eliminate the obstacles, distractions, and other annoyances that prevent you from working on your craft.

Top performers find ways to spend as much time as possible on what matters and as little time as possible on what doesn't. It is not someone else's responsibility to create the conditions for success.

You have to actively work to eliminate the things that don't matter from your workload. If you haven't figured out how to do that, you haven't mastered your craft.”
― James Clear

“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ”
― Carrie Fisher

“Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those — in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can't escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it no matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists; most likely they are counting on your being talkative and relating your experience to others.

By himself, no individual is worth an exercise in injustice (or for that matter, in justice). The ratio of one-to-one doesn't justify the effort: it's the echo that counts. That's the main principle of any oppressor, whether state-sponsored or autodidact. Therefore, steal, or still, the echo, so that you don't allow an event, however unpleasant or momentous, to claim any more time than it took for it to occur.
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What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react. Therefore, rush through or past them as though they were yellow and not red lights. Don't linger on them mentally or verbally; don't pride yourself on forgiving or forgetting them — worse come to worse, do the forgetting first. This way you'll spare your brain cells a lot of useless agitation; this way, perhaps, you may even save those pigheads from themselves, since the prospect of being forgotten is shorter than that of being forgiven. So flip the channel: you can't put this network out of circulation, but at least you can reduce its ratings.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Early feedback is usually better than late criticism.
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Delaying the conversation or stringing someone along with indirect feedback won't make them feel better once the real issue is finally addressed.
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Nobody likes getting bad news, but everyone appreciates clarity.”
― James Clear

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“There are two ways to grow: by adding or by shedding. Do you need to add something or do you need to shed something?”
― James Clear

“How to connect with others:

Share with someone who wants to listen or listen to someone who wants to share.”
― James Clear