Top 60 Eric Jorgenson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion.”

— Eric Jorgenson

2. “Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.”

— Eric Jorgenson

3. “My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.”

— Eric Jorgenson

4. “Earn with your mind, not your time.”

— Eric Jorgenson

5. “The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations, and nobody cares. Before you showed up, nobody cared. It’s all single player.”

— Eric Jorgenson

6. “When everyone is sick, we no longer consider it a disease.”

— Eric Jorgenson

7. “Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why being ethical is hard.”

— Eric Jorgenson

8. “You’re going to die one day, and none of this is going to matter. So enjoy yourself. Do something positive. Project some love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little bit. Appreciate the moment. And do your work.”

— Eric Jorgenson

9. “As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.” – Charlie Munger.”

— Eric Jorgenson

10. “Courage isn’t charging into a machine gun nest. Courage is not caring what other people think.”

— Eric Jorgenson

11. “Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people.”

— Eric Jorgenson

12. “People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve. Always pay it forward. And don’t keep count.”

— Eric Jorgenson

13. “Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Mentors won’t make you rich. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility. Save yourself.”

— Eric Jorgenson

14. “Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.”

— Eric Jorgenson

15. “Meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself. It only “works” when done for its own sake. Hiking is walking meditation. Journaling is writing meditation. Praying is gratitude meditation. Showering is accidental meditation. Sitting quietly is direct meditation.”

— Eric Jorgenson

16. “You lost your childhood sense of wonder and of being present and happy. You lost your inner happiness because you built up this personality of unresolved pain, errors, fears, and desires that glommed onto you like a bunch of barnacles.”

— Eric Jorgenson

17. “Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep.”

— Eric Jorgenson

18. “A happy person isn’t someone who’s happy all the time. It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.”

— Eric Jorgenson

19. “You’re never going to get rich renting out your time.”

— Eric Jorgenson

20. “I think the most common mistake for humanity is believing you’re going to be made happy because of some external circumstance.”

— Eric Jorgenson

21. “The hardest thing is not doing what you want – it’s knowing what you want.”

— Eric Jorgenson

22. “The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.”

— Eric Jorgenson

23. “All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits. I only want to be around people I know I’m going to be around for the rest of my life. I only want to work on things I know have long-term payout.”

— Eric Jorgenson

24. “Happiness is being satisfied with what you have.”

— Eric Jorgenson

25. “No one in the world is going to beat you at being you.”

— Eric Jorgenson

26. “Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.”

— Eric Jorgenson

27. “When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you.”

— Eric Jorgenson

28. “Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman famously said, “You should never, ever fool anybody, and you are the easiest person to fool.” The moment you tell somebody something dishonest, you’ve lied to yourself. Then you’ll start believing your own lie, which will disconnect you from reality and take you down the wrong road.”

— Eric Jorgenson

29. “Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.”

— Eric Jorgenson

30. “For self-improvement without self-discipline, update your self-image.”

— Eric Jorgenson

31. “An old boss once warned: “You’ll never be rich since you’re obviously smart, and someone will always offer you a job that’s just good enough.”

— Eric Jorgenson

32. “Essentially, you have to go through your life replacing your thoughtless bad habits with good ones, making a commitment to be a happier person. At the end of the day, you are a combination of your habits and the people who you spend the most time with.”

— Eric Jorgenson

33. “The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse.”

— Eric Jorgenson

34. “I would combine radical honesty with an old rule Warren Buffett has, which is praise specifically, criticize generally.”

— Eric Jorgenson

35. “I don’t believe in specific goals. Scott Adams famously said, “Set up systems, not goals.” Use your judgment to figure out what kinds of environments you can thrive in, and then create an environment around you so you’re statistically likely to succeed.”

— Eric Jorgenson

36. “Philosophy The real truths are heresies. They cannot be spoken. Only discovered, whispered, and perhaps read.”

— Eric Jorgenson

37. “If you don’t own a piece of a business, you don’t have a path towards financial freedom.”

— Eric Jorgenson

38. “Not in some cosmic, karma kind of way, but I believe deep down we all know who we are. You cannot hide anything from yourself. Your own failures are written within your psyche, and they are obvious to you. If you have too many of these moral shortcomings, you will not respect yourself. The worst outcome in this world is not having self-esteem. If you don’t love yourself, who will?”

— Eric Jorgenson

39. “Life-hack: When in bed, meditate. Either you will have a deep meditation or fall asleep. Victory either way.”

— Eric Jorgenson

40. “Explain what you learned to someone else. Teaching forces learning.”

— Eric Jorgenson

41. “By the time people realize they have enough money, they’ve lost their time and their health.”

— Eric Jorgenson

42. “Doing something because you “should” basically means you don’t actually want to do it. It’s just making you miserable, so I’m trying to eliminate as many “shoulds” from my life as possible.”

— Eric Jorgenson

43. “Compound interest also happens in your reputation. If you have a sterling reputation and you keep building it for decades upon decades, people will notice. Your reputation will literally end up being thousands or tens of thousands of times more valuable than somebody else who was very talented but is not keeping the compound interest in reputation going.”

— Eric Jorgenson

44. “Be a maker who makes something interesting people want. Show your craft, practice your craft, and the right people will eventually find you.”

— Eric Jorgenson

45. “The closer you want to get to me, the better your values have to be.”

— Eric Jorgenson

46. “Memory and identity are burdens from the past preventing us from living freely in the present.”

— Eric Jorgenson

47. “Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.”

— Eric Jorgenson

48. “Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start. But usually, the real wealth is created by starting your own companies or even by investing. In an investment firm, they’re buying equity. These are the routes to wealth. It doesn’t come through the hours.”

— Eric Jorgenson

49. “In a long-term game, it seems that everybody is making each other rich. And in a short-term game, it seems like everybody is making themselves rich.”

— Eric Jorgenson

50. “It takes time – even once you have all of these pieces in place, there is an indeterminate amount of time you have to put in. If you’re counting, you’ll run out of patience before success actually arrives.”

— Eric Jorgenson