Top 300 Tim Ferriss Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” –Niels Bohr.”

— Tim Ferriss

202. “I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”

— Tim Ferriss

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

— Tim Ferriss

204. “Oftentimes, in order to do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen.”

— Tim Ferriss

205. “If the best in the world are stretching their asses off in order to get strong, why aren’t you?”

— Tim Ferriss

206. “In the world of ideas, to name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the issue.” – Thomas L. Friedman.”

— Tim Ferriss

207. “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

208. “Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization.”

— Tim Ferriss

209. “Exact numbers aren’t needed to realize that we spend too much time with those who poison us with pessimism, sloth, and low expectations of themselves and the world. It is often the case that you have to fire certain friends or retire from particular social circles to have the life you want. This isn’t being mean; it is being practical. Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.”

— Tim Ferriss

210. “In the end, winning is sleeping better.” – Jodie Foster.”

— Tim Ferriss

211. “Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress – stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.”

— Tim Ferriss

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

— Tim Ferriss

213. “Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. – ALBERT EINSTEIN.”

— Tim Ferriss

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

— Tim Ferriss

215. “Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. – PAULA POUNDSTONE.”

— Tim Ferriss

216. “And if you say you’re not creative, look at how much you’re missing out on just because you’ve told yourself that. I think creativity is one of the greatest gifts that we’re born with that some people don’t cultivate, that they don’t realize it could be applied to literally everything in their lives.”

— Tim Ferriss

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

— Tim Ferriss

218. “I believe that the key to self-sufficiency is breaking free of the mindset that someone, somewhere, owes you something or will come to your rescue.”

— Tim Ferriss

219. “Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.”

— Tim Ferriss

220. “Before spending time on a stress-inducing question or problem, consider this: If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.”

— Tim Ferriss

221. “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. – BENJAMIN DISRAELI, former British Prime Minister.”

— Tim Ferriss

222. “People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. – CALVIN, from Calvin and Hobbes.”

— Tim Ferriss

223. “Our point is, if you try to approach every problem with your moral compass, first and foremost, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. You’re going to exclude a lot of possible good solutions. You’re going to assume you know a lot of things, when in fact you don’t, and you’re not going to be a good partner in reaching a solution with other people who don’t happen to see the world the way you do.”

— Tim Ferriss

224. “I used to resent obstacles along the path, thinking, “If only that hadn’t happened life would be so good.” Then I suddenly realized, life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path. Our role here is to get better at navigating those obstacles. I strive to find calm, measured responses and to see hindrances as a chance to problem-solve.”

— Tim Ferriss

225. “The great majority of that which gives you angst never happens, so you must evict it. Don’t let it live rent-free in your brain.”

— Tim Ferriss

226. “Fighting emotions is like flailing in quicksand – it only makes things worse. Sometimes, the most proactive “defense” is a mental nod and wink.”

— Tim Ferriss

227. “Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them. – BILL COSBY.”

— Tim Ferriss

228. “But not having cable or the Internet turns out to be cheaper than having them. And nature is still technically free, even if human beings have tried to make access to it expensive. Time and quiet should not be luxury items.”

— Tim Ferriss

229. “Researchers use alloxan in lab rats to induce diabetes. That’s right – it’s used to produce diabetes. This is bad news if you eat anything white or “enriched.”

— Tim Ferriss

230. “The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.’ Think.”

— Tim Ferriss

231. “When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to try to think all the big thoughts, the world-changing, massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill someone enough to make them tell all their friends about you.”

— Tim Ferriss

232. “Out of clutter, find simplicity. – Albert Einstein.”

— Tim Ferriss

233. “Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your “passion” or your “bliss,” I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement. This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

— Tim Ferriss

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

— Tim Ferriss

235. “Failure isn’t always durable. You can go back and you can look at it and go, ‘Oh, that wasn’t a failure. That was a key moment of my development that I needed to take, and I can trust my instinct. I really can’.”

— Tim Ferriss

236. “The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long” “How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love” “9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings” Anything about Alan Watts: “Alan Watts has changed my life. I’ve written about him quite a bit.”

— Tim Ferriss

237. “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

238. “Things in Excess Become Their Opposite. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite. Thus: Pacifists become militants. Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less.4 Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.”

— Tim Ferriss

239. “The best defense is a good offense. – DAN GABLE, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and the most successful coach in history; personal record: 299–6–3, with 182 pins.”

— Tim Ferriss

240. “The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending.”

— Tim Ferriss

241. “If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.”

— Tim Ferriss

242. “Many a false step was made by standing still.” –Fortune cookie.”

— Tim Ferriss

243. “As chef Mehdi Chellaoui says, “I use lemon like I use salt.” Mario Batali would agree: if something is missing, it’s probably acid.”

— Tim Ferriss

244. “Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else’s time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash. How’s that for incentive to be effective and efficient?”

— Tim Ferriss

245. “What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? If you put ten people in a room and they have to choose an ice cream flavor, they’re gonna arrive at vanilla. There is always constant pressure to conform. But originality only happens on the edges of reality. And working on that line is always dangerous because it’s only a short step to disconnected insanity. So resist temptations and advice to play to the middle. The best work always comes from pushing the edge.”

— Tim Ferriss

246. “We are simultaneously gods and worms.” – Abraham Maslow.”

— Tim Ferriss

247. “REMEMBER: it is impossible to evaluate, or even understand, anything that you cannot measure.” 80.”

— Tim Ferriss

248. “There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

— Tim Ferriss

249. “Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse.”

— Tim Ferriss

250. “If I want a better-than-average career, I can’t simply ‘go with the flow’ and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something most people would find that they get some version of the outcome they’re looking for. That’s been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing.”

— Tim Ferriss