“It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve.”

What you aim at determines what you see.

Worthlessness is the default condition.

Consciousness is a mystery that faces the mystery of potential and transforms it into actuality. We do that with every choice we make. Our choices determine the destiny of the world. By making a choice, you alter the structure of reality.

If you betray yourself, if you say untrue things, if you act out a lie, you weaken your character.

It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.

The things that pose the greatest threats to your survival are the most real things.

One of the problems with being relatively wealthy if you are a parent is that you cannot provide your children with necessity.

And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.

If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends.

Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word.

In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That is what makes it Paradise. Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie.

You remember the past not so that it is “accurately recorded,” to say it again, but so that you are prepared for the future.

Aristotle defined virtues simply as the ways of behaving that are most conducive to happiness in life.

But we can aim too high. Or too low. Or too chaotically. So we fail and live in disappointment, even when we appear to others to be living well.

It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world – a handyman’s dream, if ever there was one – is to fix yourself.

Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.

Great companies are defined by their discipline and their understanding of who they are and who they are not.

Authentic brands don’t emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does.

Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.

True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well-being of one’s companion.

If you hang out with chickens, you’re going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you’re going to fly.

You don’t build wealth with credit card rewards and airline miles. You can’t beat the credit card companies at their own game.

If I was going to go into an office I wanted it to be with people I would choose to be around even if we didn’t have to work together and so that was one of the major reasons why I decided out of all the different companies we invested in to work with Zappos.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.