Top 300 Tim Ferriss Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue – but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.”

— Tim Ferriss

152. “Mastery is a journey, not a destination. True masters never believe they have attained mastery. There is always more to be learned and greater skill to be developed.”

— Tim Ferriss

153. “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” –Niels Bohr.”

— Tim Ferriss

154. “Not Dead, Can’t Quit.”

— Tim Ferriss

155. “Aristotle had it right, but he was missing a number: “We are what we do repeatedly.”

— Tim Ferriss

156. “Refuse to accept partial completeness.”

— Tim Ferriss

157. “1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.”

— Tim Ferriss

158. “The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

— Tim Ferriss

159. “If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.” –Colonel David Hackworth.”

— Tim Ferriss

160. “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. – BRUCE LEE.”

— Tim Ferriss

161. “Success, however you define it, is achievable if you collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits.”

— Tim Ferriss

162. “The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” – Lin Yutang.”

— Tim Ferriss

163. “What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next 6 months, if you had a gun against your head?”

— Tim Ferriss

164. “If you want great mentors, you have to become a great mentee. If you want to lead, you have to first learn to follow. Ben.”

— Tim Ferriss

165. “Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. – VIDA D. SCUDDER, The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets.”

— Tim Ferriss

166. “Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask. After all, conscious thinking is largely asking and answering questions in your own head. If you want confusion and heartache, ask vague questions. If you want uncommon clarity and results, ask uncommonly clear questions.”

— Tim Ferriss

167. “Everything popular is wrong. – OSCAR WILDE, The Importance of Being Earnest.”

— Tim Ferriss

168. “One wrong person in your circle can destroy your whole future.”

— Tim Ferriss

169. “I overhear Bobby Flay say, “Take risks and you’ll get the payoffs. Learn from your mistakes until you succeed. It’s that simple.” I.”

— Tim Ferriss

170. “As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice.”

— Tim Ferriss

171. “Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre.”

— Tim Ferriss

172. “Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence.”

— Tim Ferriss

173. “With a decrease in the number of pirates, there has been an increase in global warming over the same period. Therefore, global warming is caused by a lack of pirates. Even more compelling: Somalia has the highest number of Pirates AND the lowest Carbon emissions of any country. Coincidence?”

— Tim Ferriss

174. “Often, all that stands between you and what you want is a better set of questions.”

— Tim Ferriss

175. “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” – James Cameron “If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.” – Colonel David Hackworth “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.” – Polish proverb.”

— Tim Ferriss

176. “Work wherever and whenever you want, but get your work done.”

— Tim Ferriss

177. “The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.”

— Tim Ferriss

178. “Does history record any case in which the majority was right? – Robert Heinlein.”

— Tim Ferriss

179. “More than 80% of the interviewees have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice.”

— Tim Ferriss

180. “If you spend your time, worth $20-25 per hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour, it’s simply a poor use of resources.”

— Tim Ferriss

181. “In other words, you can spend all day undermining other people, and even if you’re right, who cares? Anybody can talk about why something’s bad. Try doing something good.”

— Tim Ferriss

182. “Losing makes you think in ways victories can’t. You begin asking questions instead of feeling like you have the answers. Questions open up the doors to so many possibilities.”

— Tim Ferriss

183. “Give vulnerability a shot. Give discomfort its due. Because I think he or she who is willing to be the most uncomfortable is not only the bravest, but rises the fastest.”

— Tim Ferriss

184. “Losers react, leaders anticipate.”

— Tim Ferriss

185. “What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt – it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.” – Hal Boyle.”

— Tim Ferriss

186. “The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.”

— Tim Ferriss

187. “Strauss, Neil: “‘The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.’ – Norman Vincent Peale.”

— Tim Ferriss

188. “Embrace uncertainty, groundlessness, and fear as the place where you’ll really learn and grow.”

— Tim Ferriss

189. “Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous’ by Jim Dator. Also, ‘When it comes to the future, it’s far more important to be imaginative than to be right’ by Alvin Toffler. Both are famous futurists. These quotes remind me that world-changing ideas will seem absurd to most people, and that the most useful work I can be doing is to push the envelope of what is considered possible.”

— Tim Ferriss

190. “What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.”

— Tim Ferriss

191. “There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. – YVON CHOUINARD,7 founder of Patagonia.”

— Tim Ferriss

192. “I’m not the strongest. I’m not the fastest. But I’m really good at suffering.”

— Tim Ferriss

193. “If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.”

— Tim Ferriss

194. “Did you eat half an Oreo cookie? No problem. If you’re a 220-pound male, you just need to climb 27 flights of stairs to burn it off.”

— Tim Ferriss

195. “How has being “realistic” or “responsible” kept you from the life you want? 2. How has doing what you “should” resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done something else? 3. Look at what you’re currently doing and ask yourself, “What would happen if I did the opposite of.”

— Tim Ferriss

196. “To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.”

— Tim Ferriss

197. “If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.”

— Tim Ferriss

198. “People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. – JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Power of Myth.”

— Tim Ferriss

199. “It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor.”

— Tim Ferriss

200. “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” – Pierre-Marc-Gaston.”

— Tim Ferriss