Author, entrepreneur, blogger, podcaster, public speaker, charity advocate, health guru and multiple business award winner – Timothy Ferris has achieved pretty much everything one could imagine. Known for pushing the limits, Tim is one of the only people in the world whose other accomplishments completely dwarf the fact that he’s a Princeton alumnus.

Below are 40 of his most famous quotes throughout his record career in life hacking:  

2. “People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”

3. “You are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.”

4. “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

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

6. “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.”

7. “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.”

8. “The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.”

9. “Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you’re moving.”

10. “Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.”

12. “Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.”

13. “The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.”

14. “Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.”

15. “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.”

16. “Life is too short to be small.”

17. “Many a false step was made by standing still.”

18. “Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure.”

19. “The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.”

20. “Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.”

22. “Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.”

23. “The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.”

24. “$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.”

25. “By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.”

26. “Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive.”

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

28. “For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they’re being held from.”

29. “It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.”

30. “It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.”

32. “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.”

33. “Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.”

34. “I will take as a given that, for most people, somewhere between six and seven billion of them, the perfect job is the one that takes the least time.”

35. “People are fond of using the its not what you know, its who you know adage as an excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends.”

36. “If you let pride stop you, you will hate life.”

37. “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.”

38. “It is possible to become world-class, enter the top 5% of performers in the world, in almost any subject within 6-12 months, or even 6-12 weeks.”

39. “Pareto’s Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs
result from 20% of the inputs.”

40. “Age doesn’t matter: an open mind does.”

I hope you were inspired by these quotes! Which Tim Ferriss quote has the most impact in your life?