Top 100 Ryder Carroll Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. – REINHOLD NIEBUHR.”

— Ryder Carroll

2. “Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make us. – RICHIE NORTON.”

— Ryder Carroll

3. “Even though your Netflix queue is four years long, somehow nothing looks good!”

— Ryder Carroll

4. “By weaving together productivity, mindfulness, and intentionality into a framework that is flexible, forgiving, and, most importantly, practical.”

— Ryder Carroll

5. “Leading an intentional life is about keeping your actions aligned with your beliefs. It’s about penning a story that you believe in and that you can be proud of.”

— Ryder Carroll

6. “Life had gotten too busy. It seemed as if my existence had become just one long to-do list. I had forgotten about my dreams, my goals, my what-ifs, my “what if I could’s.” – AMY HAINES.”

— Ryder Carroll

7. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. – ALLEN SAUNDERS.”

— Ryder Carroll

8. “The act of writing by hand draws our mind into the present moment on a neurological level unlike any other capturing mechanism.”

— Ryder Carroll

9. “Productivity is in large part a matter of consistency. Once you get it out of your head that you have to work at breakneck speed, you can focus on the process. Short of superhuman willpower, that’s the only way you’ll keep at it.”

— Ryder Carroll

10. “Mindfulness is the process of waking up to see what’s right in front of us. It helps you become more aware of where you are, who you are, and what you want.”

— Ryder Carroll

11. “Rather than being proactive about setting priorities, a lot of us simply let the flood of external demands set them for us.”

— Ryder Carroll

12. “Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse and author who spent several years working in palliative care with patients in the last weeks of their lives, recorded her patients’ top five regrets. The number one regret was that people wished they had stayed true to themselves.”

— Ryder Carroll

13. “The power of the bullet journal is that it becomes whatever you want it to be or need it to be regardless of what season you are in.”

— Ryder Carroll

14. “Reflection helps identify what nourishes you so you can make better decisions as you seed the next season of your life.”

— Ryder Carroll

15. “The palest ink is better than the best memory. – CHINESE PROVERB.”

— Ryder Carroll

16. “Often all it takes to live intentionally is to pause before you proceed.”

— Ryder Carroll

17. “There never has been, nor will there ever be, another like you. Your singular perspective may patch some small hole in the vast tattered fabric of humanity. Uniqueness alone, however, does not make you valuable. If you don’t do, if you don’t dare, then you rob the world – and yourself – of the chance to contribute something meaningful.”

— Ryder Carroll

18. “If you don’t do, if you don’t dare, then you rob the world – and yourself – of the chance to contribute something meaningful.”

— Ryder Carroll

19. “This freedom of choice is a double-edged privilege. Every decision requires you to focus, and focus is an investment of your time and energy. Both are limited – and therefore exceptionally valuable – resources.”

— Ryder Carroll

20. “It will help you track the past and order the present so that you can design your future.”

— Ryder Carroll

21. “Productivity is about getting more done by working on fewer things.”

— Ryder Carroll

22. “We live in an age where technology promises us near-limitless options to occupy ourselves, yet we’re left feeling more distracted and disconnected than ever before.”

— Ryder Carroll

23. “Few things are more distracting than the cruel stories we tell ourselves.”

— Ryder Carroll

24. “You’ll learn how to stop reacting and start responding.”

— Ryder Carroll

25. “Perfection is an unnatural and damaging concept.”

— Ryder Carroll

26. “Overwhelmed by a never-ending flood of information, we’re left feeling overstimulated yet restless, overworked yet discontented, tuned in yet burned out.”

— Ryder Carroll

27. “Keep in mind that each task is an experience waiting to be born, offering a glimpse into your potential future. That’s why everything on your list has to fight for its life to stay there.”

— Ryder Carroll

28. “Like a block of marble, our lives are finite. They start out rough and formless. Each choice we make places a chisel to the stone. Each action irreversibly chips away time. No action is so insignificant that it can’t benefit from our attention. It’s the lack of attention that’s often responsible for the rubble of cringeworthy decisions weighing on our conscience.”

— Ryder Carroll

29. “If the journey is the destination, then we must learn how to become better travelers. To become better travelers, we must first learn to orient ourselves. Where are you now? Do you want to be here? If not, why do you want to move.”

— Ryder Carroll

30. “Being busy, however, is not the same thing as being productive.”

— Ryder Carroll

31. “The root of the word “ecstasy” comes from the Greek ekstasis, which means “standing outside oneself.” Csikszentmihalyi posits that this feeling is the result of the mind being so consumed with a task that it cannot consciously process the experience of self.”

— Ryder Carroll

32. “Convenience, however, often comes at the expense of understanding. The less time you spend examining things, the less you know about them. When it comes to understanding how you spend your life, it’s important to slow down and take the time.”

— Ryder Carroll

33. “Cultivating this self-awareness is a lifelong process, but it starts by simply checking in with yourself.”

— Ryder Carroll

34. “As any athlete will tell you, you need to tear muscle to build it, over and over again. Like building muscle, we need to train our intentions to make them resilient and strong.”

— Ryder Carroll

35. “Robert Bresson once said, “Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”

— Ryder Carroll

36. “In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them.”

— Ryder Carroll

37. “As Daniel Levitin writes in The Organized Mind, information overload is worse for our focus than exhaustion or smoking marijuana.3.”

— Ryder Carroll

38. “No matter how bleak or menacing a situation may appear, it does not enitrely own us. It can’t take away our freedom to respond, our power to take action.”

— Ryder Carroll

39. “If the journey is the destination, then we must learn how to become better travelers.”

— Ryder Carroll

40. “Inevitably we find ourselves tackling too many things at the same time, spreading our focus so thin that nothing gets the attention it deserves. This is commonly referred to as “being busy.” Being busy, however, is not the same thing as being productive.”

— Ryder Carroll

41. “Daunting choices don’t simply vanish; they wait in the wings, steadily becoming more menacing.”

— Ryder Carroll

42. “As technology leaked into every nook in my life, with its countless distractions, my methodology provided an analog refuge that proved invaluable in helping me define and focus on what truly mattered.”

— Ryder Carroll

43. “Writing down this mission statement is also a great way to “wake the page”. That’s the term I use to describe the act of marking the page for the first time. It’s the moment when thought transcends the distance between our inner and outer world, and we breathe life into our ideas.”

— Ryder Carroll

44. “Each Bullet Journal becomes another volume in the story of your life. Does it represent the life you want to live? If not, then leverage the lessons you’ve learned to change the narrative in the next volume.”

— Ryder Carroll

45. “The Bullet Journal will help you declutter your packed mind so you can finally examine your thoughts from an objective distance.”

— Ryder Carroll

46. “It’s part organization, part soul-searching, part dream-weaving.”

— Ryder Carroll

47. “We must take it upon ourselves to grow. We grow by learning, and we learn by daring to take action. There will always be risk, because we can’t control the outcome. This is the way of life, and it’s unavoidable. What is avoidable, however, is being perpetually haunted by all the things that could have been if you had only dared. Begin by giving yourself permission to believe you’re worth the risk.”

— Ryder Carroll

48. “Our efforts are always fueled by some promise. What exactly do you expect in exchange for your blood, sweat, and tears? What is the goal behind all of our goals? For most of us, it’s to be happy, and therein lies the problem.”

— Ryder Carroll

49. “We rewrite things until we get them done or they become irrelevant.”

— Ryder Carroll

50. “How do we best harness our curiosity while reducing the risk of failure? We set goals. When set with intention, goals can provide structure, direction, focus, and purpose.”

— Ryder Carroll