Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

People that get old don't get get old because they've just got a lot years under their belt, they get old because they've lost the curiosity and expectation of life. 

The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

The first step toward change is awareness. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, you have to start by becoming aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination.

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are. The last thing we want is to remain as we are.

Change is hardest at the beginning, messiest in the middle and best at the end.

When people realize, at least theoretically, that the chaos they fear is the prelude to positive change, it sometimes helps them to relax. When they’re able to look at the process as a continual cycle of death and rebirth, and remember that the cycle is painful only when they identify with what is dying, it often eases their distress.

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.

The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

The amateur dreads becoming who she really is because she fears that this new person will be judged by others as "different." The tribe will declare us "weird" or "queer" or "crazy." The tribe will reject us. Here's the truth: the tribe doesn't give a shit. There is no tribe. That gang or posse that we imagine is sustaining us by the bonds we share is in fact a conglomeration of individuals who are just as fucked up as we are and just as terrified. Each individual is so caught up in his own bullshit that he doesn't have two seconds to worry about yours or mine, or to reject or diminish us because of it. When we truly understand that the tribe doesn't give a damn, we're free. There is no tribe, and there never was. Our lives are entirely up to us.

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

In an environment of turbulent change, as de Geus famously wrote: “The ability to learn faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage."

To be great is to be misunderstood.

If you find no one to support you on the spiritual path, walk alone. There is no companionship with the immature.

Close your ears to all adverse suggestions. Never mind if people call you a fool and a dreamer. Dream on.