Top 30 Po Bronson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Allow for many paths to your goal. Do not fixate on one path, because then you are likely to give up when that path is blocked.”

— Po Bronson

2. “We all make mistakes, but we need to learn from them and move on. You can own a mistake, or the mistake will own you.”

— Po Bronson

3. “Who you are is more important than what you do. The goal is to bring what you do in alignment with who you are, so you don’t end up being someone you don’t want to be.”

— Po Bronson

4. “Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.”

— Po Bronson

5. “If you want to give yourself a fair chance to succeed, never expect too much too soon.”

— Po Bronson

6. “Love that has been tested is far more awe-inspiring than love that has never known anything but bliss.”

— Po Bronson

7. “There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice.”

— Po Bronson

8. “Interests evolve into hobbies or volunteer work, which grow into passions. It takes time, more time than anyone imagines.”

— Po Bronson

9. “There’s a powerful transformative effect when you surround yourself with like-minded people. Peer pressure is a great thing when it helps you accomplish your goals instead of distracting you from them.”

— Po Bronson

10. “Anytime you exhaust yourself trying to relax, that’s active leisure.”

— Po Bronson

11. “The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what you only pretend to care about.”

— Po Bronson

12. “We’ve all lost something along the way.”

— Po Bronson

13. “People thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are – and connecting that to work that they truly love .”

— Po Bronson

14. “Curiosity is a raw and genuine sign from deep inside our tangled psyches, and we’d do well to follow the direction it points us in.”

— Po Bronson

15. “As I get older, I’ve learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.”

— Po Bronson

16. “I used to want to change the world. Now I’m open to letting it change me.”

— Po Bronson

17. “Write first. Worry about getting an agent or publisher later. Write it first. Prove you can do it and then others will listen. Tons of people talk about books they want to write. Far fewer are those who actually complete that vision. Don’t be a talker.”

— Po Bronson

18. “A piece of writing has to seduce the reader; it has to suspend disbelief and earn the reader’s trust.”

— Po Bronson

19. “Obese kids watch no more television than kids who aren’t obese. All the thin kids watch massive amounts of television, too. There is no statistical correlation between obesity and media use, period.”

— Po Bronson

20. “This variable, how a parent responds to a child’s vocalizations – right in the moment – seems to be the most powerful mechanism pulling a child from babble to fluent speech.”

— Po Bronson

21. “Researchers have found that the more people focus on their odds of winning, the less likely they’ll go for it. But the more they focus on what they’ll win if they succeed, the more likely they’ll go for it.”

— Po Bronson

22. “Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.”

— Po Bronson

23. “The moral is to not set yourself goals which don’t leave you any freedom to maneuver.”

— Po Bronson

24. “How often a mother initiates a conversation with her child is not predictive of the language outcomes – what matters is, if the infant initiates, whether the mom responds.”

— Po Bronson

25. “The emphasis on winning is preventing kids from learning how to pass, which is the skill they ultimately need at the highest levels. The proposed solution is for top youth players to play fewer games.”

— Po Bronson

26. “It surprises me how often we hold ourselves back until we have no choice.”

— Po Bronson

27. “Success is not measured by bestseller lists. Certain types of great books sell very well; other types of great books don’t sell a lot. But they’re both great.”

— Po Bronson

28. “All the studies point in the same direction: on average, children who sleep less are fatter than children who sleep more. This isn’t just here, in America – scholars all around the world are considering it, because children everywhere are both getting fatter and getting less sleep.”

— Po Bronson

29. “I used to use business to make money. But I’ve learned that business is a tool. You can use it to support what you believe in.”

— Po Bronson

30. “In one study, Cummings found that children’s emotional well-being and security are more affected by the relationship between the parents than by the direct relationship between the parent and child.”

— Po Bronson

31. “Sanskrit describes five layers of self, or mind: Physical, feeling, perception, intention, and consciousness.”

— Po Bronson

32. “It bears repeating: the mental states needed to compete are not always socially palatable.”

— Po Bronson

33. “I think when a reader reads a whole book – which takes six to ten hours – that’s kind of a gift to the author. The gift of close, undivided attention. To who else do we listen so closely for eight straight hours? And when readers give that gift to me, I’m grateful for it.”

— Po Bronson