“Thought is crooked because it can invent anything and see things that are not there. It can perform the most extraordinary tricks, and therefore it cannot be depended upon. But if you understand the whole structure of how you think, why you think, the words you use, the way you behave in your daily life, the way you talk to people, the way you treat people, the way you walk, the way you eat- if you are aware of all these things then your mind will not deceive you, then there is nothing to be deceived.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known
“I came out mature. What did he mean by those words? Andre Malraux wrote in his memoirs that the rarest thing in the world is a mature man. Mandela would agree with him. To me, those four words are the deepest clue to who Nelson Mandela is and what he learned. Because that sensitive, emotional young man did not go away. He is still inside the Nelson Mandela we see today. By maturity, he meant he learned to control those more youthful impulses, not that he was no longer stung or hurt or angry. It is not that you always know what to do or how to do it, it is that you are able to tamp down the emotions and anxieties that get in the way of seeing the world as it is. You can see through them, and that will see you through.”
— Mandela’s Way. Lessons on Life, Love and Courage by Richard Stengel
Zero to One
The lesson for entrepreneurs is clear: if you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business.
- Peter Thiel
“Successful people find value in unexpected places and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.”
— Zero to One by Peter Thiel
“The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula (for success) necessarily cannot exist; because every innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative.”
— Zero to One by Peter Thiel