207 Inspiring Quotes by Naval Ravikant

The most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It's just like building muscles.

I think it just helps to be very aware that fundamentally, there are no adults. Everyone is making it up as they go along. You have to find your own path, picking, choosing, taking and discarding as you see fit.

Be present. Be meditative. Form real friendships. Stay away from business networking events or friendships where there is always an underlying business angle.

I think almost everything about humans and human civilization is explained better by evolution than anything else.

If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news' advocates, you'll end up nutritionally, financially and morally bankrupt.

Any meeting with eight people sitting around at a conference table, nothing is getting done in that meeting. You are literally just dying one hour at a time.

You can have the mind or you can have the moment.

Anger is its own punishment. An angry person trying to push your head below water is drowning at the same time.

You're actually in deep meditation all the time. It's just covered up by all the noise, and all the thoughts, and all the emotional things that are running through you. It's always there underneath.

All the problems of older times were scarcity… now they're all abundance based.

Doing nothing is really hard for us, since we're such a productivity-driven culture and species.

Number of books completed is a vanity metric. As you know more, you leave more books unfinished.

Now we have the Internet, which is the greatest weapon of knowledge ever created, completely interconnected.

It's important not to think about Bitcoin as a replacement for cash or gold or something that works alongside that; it's to think of it as programmable money. And we just cannot even imagine what that will be used for.

A generation of autodidacts, educated by the Internet and leveraged by technology, will eventually starve the industrial-education system.

Anxiety is the human condition. It's probably the single most pervasive emotion.

Success is the inevitable byproduct of learning.

Your trauma creates you.

The mind itself is a muscle -- it can be trained and conditioned.

The advantage of meditation is recognizing just how out of control your mind is.

The measure of wisdom is how calm you are when facing any given situation.

Most of life is about searching, it's not about doing. People spend too much time doing and not thinking about what they should be doing.

The secret to a happy relationship is two happy people.

Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed.

Truth above everything.

Even better than being loved is being in love.

You make your own luck if you stay at it long enough.

Self-esteem is just the reputation you have with yourself. You'll always know.

Figure out what you are uniquely the best in the world at because you just love it. And then just find out who or what needs that the most.

Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.

Money is a bubble that never pops. It's a consensus hallucination.

If you want to be successful, surround yourself with people who are more successful than you are, but if you want to be happy, surround yourself with people who are less successful than you are.

It's such a poisonous emotion because, at the end of the day, you're no better off, you're unhappier, and the person you're jealous of is still successful or good-looking or whatever they are.

Future: Money becomes information. Weapons become information. Land becomes information. Software eats society.

A future society may support overclocking brilliant young scientists with mental performance enhancing drugs to get more scientific breakthroughs.

Happiness is a choice and a skill and you can dedicate yourself to learning that skill and making that choice.

Having a million-dollar net worth doesn't make you a genius, and having less than a million-dollar net worth doesn't make you a fool.

This task is yours and yours alone.

Your mind isn't unfocused. It's just focused on something that another part of your mind want's it to be focused on. This creates self-conflict.

We can code wills, escrows, trusts, notaries, revokable charge backs, proof of contracts, intellectual property enforcement. What Wall Street does can be done in code by Bitcoin.

Charisma is the ability to project confidence and love at the same time.

The phrase that I use the most to myself in my head is one word: accept.

Get wealthy, get healthy, get happy.

It's all about success, success, success. Because we live in this mythology of anyone can achieve the American dream, if you're not successful, if you're not Tim Ferriss, then you're a loser.

I just started with watching my breath and evolved from there.

We didn't set out to build a product. We set out to solve a problem.

Anti-establishment candidates are the future.

More patience, more presence, less anxiety.

It's ok to grieve, it's a form of love.

The closer you are to the truth, the more silent you become inside.

The great viruses of our time spread through minds, not through bodies.

Happiness is a state where nothing is missing.

When you find the right thing to do, and people to work with, invest deeply into that, and stick with it for decades.

Integrity is when what you think and what you say and what you do are one.

The fundamental delusion -- there is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.

Micro and macro optimism: People can be fit, happy, and successful. The world is fine and getting better.

You are more than just your mind. You are more than just your habits. You are more than just your preferences. You're a level of awareness.

China may censor YouTube. China may censor Twitter. They won't be able to censor Bitcoin. There's no central authority. There's no one you can go to and say, 'We're going to turn Bitcoin off.'

A block chain is a series of blocks. Each block is a series of computations done by computers all over the world using serious cryptography in a way that's very hard to undo.

Once you're calm and fit, you have everything worth having, as the rest just comes and goes.

I think the ability is to singularly focus is related to the ability to lose yourself and be present, happy, and actually, ironically, more effective.

In an ideal world, you raise a lot of money and then there is a downturn, before you start investing so you get better deals. But it doesn't always happen that way.

The clichés like "follow your dreams," and "live in the moment" are actually correct.

The best founders are extremely thoughtful and have an eye for quality. I don't know if there's any generic advice here that would be helpful. Startup knowledge is a moving target.

Someone who doesn't care, can't be hurt.

Reading is the ultimate meta-skill that can be traded for anything else.

View reading as an investment.

The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet.

There is no meaning to life, because if there was you would not be free.

Unresolved thoughts, prematurely pushed out of the mind, pile up in an internal landfill -- which eventually pokes out of the subconscious and manifests as chronic, nonspecific anxiety.

Living a life of integrity pays off, but it takes a very long time.

People come in. They are too gung ho. They invest too much money in things they don't know. They lose it and then they clam up and stop investing. Then they miss the actual boom. That's the nature of the market.

When do children cry? When they want something. Adults are no different.

When you're dishonest with yourself, you're disconnected from reality. You're going to make poor decisions. You're going to drop out of the moment and you're going to be less happy and you're going to be wrong.

Our mind is evolved to be paranoid, fearful and angry.

When you do things for their own sake, that's when you create your best work. That's when it's art.

Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind.

What the world craves is authenticity.

One can optimize for productivity or one can optimize for creativity, but it's hard to do both.

True happiness comes out of peace. Peace comes out of many things, but it comes from fundamentally understanding yourself.

The less scheduled you are, the more creative you're going to be.

Swearing signals a lack of eloquence and emotional control.

Don't settle, and don't struggle. Life is what flows in between.

You don't get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money.

I once asked a monk how he found peace. "I say ‘yes'" he'd said. "To all that happens, I say ‘yes'".

The more worldly success you have, the more your ego gets built up. The more fearful you might be of losing it all.

No one can compete with you on being you. Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.

Unlike a normal venture fund, we never stop raising capital. We can always absorb new capital on the platform and into the next deal as long as we feel it won't distort the allocation and the pricing.

Sit down, close your eyes, get in a comfortable position, and whatever happens, happens. If you think, you think. If you don't think, you don't think. Don't put any effort into it.

Persistent, non-specific anxiety is the result of wanting so much, talking so much, and doing so much that you lose touch with the quiet joys of solitude.

Be impatient with actions but patient with results.

Forty hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes -- train and sprint, then rest and reassess.

What you do, and how you do it, is so much more important than how hard you do it.

You do not want to compete, you want to be a market of one.

There is no skill called "business." Avoid business magazines and business classes.

No one is going to value you more than you value yourself.

A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to create anything great.

People spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing.

You have one life. You're dead for tens of billions of years, and you're going to be dead for tens of billions of years.

On AngelList, we get 100 new companies created a day. That's an insane flood.

With my desire to improve everything, I destroy the moment.

Money doesn't buy happiness -- it buys freedom.

Honesty plus love will get you through most situations.

Better "wrong" alone than "right" with the herd.

Getting in the middle of financial transactions is a regulatory minefield.

Recover time and happiness by minimizing these three apps: phone, calendar, and alarm clock.

If you don't care to be liked, they can't touch you.

As long as you can keep taking shots on goal, and you keep getting back up, eventually you'll get through. Just stick at it.

Think of Bitcoin as a bank account in the cloud, and it's completely decentralized: not the Swiss government, not the American government. It's all the participants in the network enforcing.

Cryptocurrencies will create a fifth protocol layer powering the next generation of the Internet.

A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought -- they must be earned.

It's becoming easier and easier to be social, but exceptional people are built in solitude.

We're told that the American dream will bring you happiness, and it will not. I think a lot of us learn as we get older that happiness is internal. Happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop.

Meditation is the art of doing nothing.

Cool people are considered "cool" because they break the rules and get away with it.

The better your feedback loop, the better your work. Businesses have the market. Novels have the readers. Science has experiments. It's when the feedback loop is a small group of bosses or peers that quality falls apart.

Learn bits and pieces from everyone.

With tech startups, it's all loose-goosie. You raise money as you go, often from friends, family and investors.

Nothing matters and that's a good thing as it sets you free.

Anyone around whom I can't be fully honest, I don't want to be around.

True rewards -- wealth, knowledge, love, fitness, and equanimity -- come from ignoring others and improving ourselves.

The more someone is saying that they're moral, ethical, and high integrity, the less likely they are to be that way.

In terms of picking people to work with, pick ones that have high intelligence, high energy, and high integrity.

Specialisation is for insects. I don't believe in this model of trying to focus your life down one thing. You've got one life just do everything you want.

Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work.

Meditation is not you going through thoughts -- it's letting thoughts go through you.

If you're good with computers, if you're good at basic mathematics, if you're good at writing, if you're good at speaking, and if you like reading, you're set for life.

Stop caring about impact and just be the best version of you possible -- then you'll naturally have an impact.

Competing without software is like competing without electricity.

When you understand something, then it naturally calms you down.

Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years.

Don't do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You'll always know.

Either have children or become a saint, because eventually, you have to find something you love more than you love yourself.

Judge, and feel separate and lonely. Anger, and lose peace of mind. Cling, and live in anxiety. Fantasize, and miss the present. Desire, and suffer until you have it.

If meditation was easy, you'd do nothing else.

Pick an industry where you can play long term games with long term people.

I open up my kindle, I look through. Based on my mood, I'll flip through to whatever book matches my mood…The most important thing that does for me is it lets me read on a regular basis.

The only opinion of me that I care for is my own, and the only timeframe is now.

Knowledge is useful when applied, but over-accumulated for its own sake is a burden.

Startups are constantly raising money, sometimes before they have even hired a lawyer.

They call it "peace of mind" but maybe it should be called "peace from mind."

If you attack someone's identity, you shut down all conversations with them.

Just focus on the one or two really really important things, and everything else, just surrender to it.

I think the hard thing here is seeing the truth. To see the truth, you have to get your ego out of the way because your ego doesn't want to face the truth.

Creativity is obscured by the conscious mind.

Most of the gains in life come from suffering in the short term, so you can get paid in the long term.

Status is your ranking in the social hierarchy.

It's only pain that can make you change.

You're offended when you fear that it might be true.

Keep a nimble mind, and err on the side of precaution.

This may be the last generation that has a powerful tool like the Internet, and the focused attention span to do deep work.

Most of modern life, all our diseases, are diseases of abundance, not diseases of scarcity.

It's to be okay whatever the outcome is. It's to be balanced and centered. It's to step back and to see the grander scheme of things.

There are no get rich quick schemes. That's just someone else getting rich off you.

I want to be able to just be me. I never want to be in an environment or around people where I have to watch what I say.

Within my social circle, there is a large group of people who will take bitcoin as legal tender; like, you can go to them and settle debts in Bitcoin, and they will happily take it.

When the mind is speaking without permission, it's lying.

If you're investing in a company in the Bitcoin economy, you have to compare the valuation of the company to the valuation of the entire economy.

Earn with your mind, not with your time.

One philosophy I have at AngelList is I would rather have someone working on the wrong thing and do it their way and be motivated, than working on the right thing and do it my way and not be motivated.

Relax. You'll live longer and perform better.

If you want the truth, take no one else's word for it. Accept only science, reason, and direct experience. Start on solid ground. Mind each step.

The more you judge, the more you separate yourself.

If you want to save the world, save your little corner of the world.

Sit with the pain until it passes, and you will be calmer for the next one.

Three things in life -- your health, your mission, and the people you love. That's it.

If you want to be effective in business, you need a clear, calm, cool, collected mind.

I don't care whether you're a top Wall Street banker, if somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear, and how to behave, you're not a free person.

I know just enough to know how little we know.

Skim quickly to find something worth reading, and then absorb it slowly. Words per minute is a vanity metric -- any book worth reading requires pausing to reflect.

People who have the ability to fail in public under their own names actually gain a lot of power.

Think for yourself, not of yourself. Think of others, not for others.

Cryptocurrencies are an emergent property of the Internet -- almost a fifth protocol in the Internet suite. If Satoshi Nakomoto did not exist, it would still be necessary to invent them.

Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.

The price of trying to make everyone else happy is making yourself miserable.

Making money is not a thing that you do -- it's a skill that you learn.

Rules that may be easy for Wall Street are a death sentence for startups. They are easy to break accidentally and the penalty for noncompliance is severe.

Boredom is a defense mechanism to avoid having to sit alone with our unaddressed thoughts.