You must always work not just within
but below your means. If you can handle three
elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten,
then handle only five. In that way the ones you
do handle, you handle with more ease, more
mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in
reserve.
— Pablo
Picasso
The Law of Triviality . . .
briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any
item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the
sum involved.
— C. Northcote Parkinson
Every man is, or hopes to be, an
idler.
— Samuel Johnson
There are only two
ways of getting on in the world: by one's own industry,
or by the stupidity of others.
— Jean de La Bruyère
A clever person solves
a problem. A wise person avoids it.
— Albert Einstein
Success means only
doing what you do well, letting someone else do the
rest.
— Goldstein S. Truism
I made up my mind long
ago that life was too short to do anything for myself
that I could pay others to do for me.
— W. Somerset Maugham
If you see a
snake, just kill it — don't appoint a committee on
snakes.
— H. Ross Perot
The difference between
a job and a career is the difference between forty and
sixty hours a week.
— Robert Frost
One of the problems of
retirement
is that it gives you more time to read about the
problems of retirement.
— Anon
Ultimately nothing matters and so what if it
did.
— Unknown wise person
Everything should be
made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
— Albert Einstein
If not now, when?
— Zen Koan
Our life
is frittered away by detail ... simplify,
simplify.
— Henry David
Thoreau
I couldn't
wait for success . . . so I went ahead without it.
— Jonathan Winters
Is not life a hundred
times too short for us to bore ourselves?
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Live all you can;
it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter
what you do in particular, so long as you have
your life. If you haven't had that, what have you
had?
— Henry James
Call upon a man of
business during hours of business only to transact your
business. Then go about your business and give him time
to attend to his business.
— Unknown Wise Person
The shortest and best
way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly
that it is in their interests to promote yours.
— Jean de La Bruyére
How soon hath Time, the subtle
thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
— John Milton
If you don't want to work you
have to work to earn enough money so that you won't
have to work.
— Ogden Nash
Spend your time and
energy creating, not criticizing.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
It's not so much how busy you
are, but why you are busy.
The bee is praised; the mosquito is swatted.
— Queen of France, wife of King Louis XVI
(1755-1793)
It's better to do a sub-par job working on
the right project than a great job working on
the wrong project.
— Robert J. Ringer
To get something done a
committee should consist of no more than three men, two
of whom are absent.
— Robert Copeland
I am definitely going
to take a course on time management . .
. just as soon as I can work it into my
schedule.
— Louis E. Boone
Time is waste of money.
— Oscar Wilde
Chance is the one thing you
can't buy. . . . You have to pay for it and you have to
pay for it with your life, spending a lot of time, you
pay for it with time, not the wasting of time but the
spending of time.
— Robert Doisneau
Don't become a slave
to non-crucial matters.
— Robert J. Ringer
Surround yourself with
problem solvers, not problem creators.
— Robert J. Ringer
The great secret in life ...[is]
not to open your letters for a fortnight. At the
expiration of that period you will find that nearly all
of them have answered themselves.
— Arthur Binstead
Leave undone whatever
you hesitate to do.
— Yoshida Kanko
Don't waste time learning the
"tricks of the trade." Instead learn the trade.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Nothing ever comes out as planned.
— Seay's Law
Some
folks can look so busy doing nothin' that they seem
indispensable.
— Kin Hubbard
The curse of me and my nation is
that we always think things can be bettered by
immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no
sort.
— Ezra Pound
I don't even butter my
bread. I consider that cooking.
— Katherine Cebrian
Little
things affect little minds.
— Benjamin Disraeli
Everything should be made as
simple as possible, but not simpler.
— Albert Einstein
If it ain't broke, don't fix
it.
— American proverb
If you don't have
enough time to accomplish something, consider the work
finished once it's begun.
— John Gage
If you're already in a
hole, it's no use to continue digging.
— Roy W. Walters
Never do today what
you can do as well tomorrow; because something may
occur to make you regret your premature action.
— Aaron Burr
The time to relax is when you
don't have time for it.
— Sydney J. Harris
Choose one of these
three ways to handle a task fast:
1: Do it yourself.
2: Hire an expert to handle it for you.
3: Decide that it isn't worth doing and strike it off
your to-do list.
— from The Lazy Person's Guide to
Success
When you are doing something
difficult, tedious, or extremely time-consuming, ask
yourself what would happen if you didn't do it. If the
answer is nothing, or next to nothing, stop doing
it.
— from The Lazy Person's Guide to
Success
Don't' overdo things
that shouldn't be done in the first place.
— Unknown Wise Person
Doing a thing well is often a
waste of time.
— Robert Byrne
If you can't keep up, drag them
down to your level.
— Laurence J. Peter
If there's a harder
way of doing something, someone will find it.
— Ralph E. Ross
When the going gets tough, the
smart get lost.
— Robert Byrne
One of the best ways
of avoiding necessary and even urgent tasks is to seem
busily employed on things that are already done.
— John Kennett Galbraith
Men are disturbed not by things
that happen, but by their opinion of the things that
happen.
— Epictetus
There is no more futile
punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
— Albert Camus
The rich don't work for
money
— Robert T. Kiyosaki
I grew up in New
England. I think I was brought up with the Puritan
ethic: that if you worked really hard in life, then
good would come to you. The harder you work, the
luckier you get. I've come to believe that it's the
smarter you work, the better.
— Ken Blanchard
It's a good rule to follow the
first law of holes: if you are in one, stop
digging.
— Denis Healey
It is always with the best
intentions that the worst work is done.
— Oscar Wilde
The less of routine, the more of
life.
— A. B. Alcott
My philosophy is that
anything worth doing is too hard.
— Wally in Dilbert Cartoon
Something in human nature causes
us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest
accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need
a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense
of balance, humility, and commitment.
— Ross Perot
There is nothing
brilliant nor outstanding in my record, except perhaps
this one thing: I do the things that I believe ought to
be done .... And when I make up my mind to do a thing,
I act.
— Theodore Roosevelt
So many worlds, so much to
do,
So little done, such things to be.
— Lord Tennyson
If it's never your fault, you
can't take responsibility for it. If you can't take
responsibility for it, you'll always be its victim.
— Richard Bach, Illusions
There's never enough
time to do all the nothing you want.
— Bill Watterson
Remember that nothing
matters very much, and few things matter at all.
— Arthur Balfour
The more you think, the more
time you have.
— Henry Ford
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.
— Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour
Workweek
Having served on
various committees, I have drawn up a list of rules:
Never arrive on time; this stamps you as a beginner.
Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this
stamps you as wise. Be as vague as possible; this
avoids irritating the others. When in doubt, suggest a
subcommittee be appointed. Be the first to move for
adjournment; this will make you popular; it's what e
eryone is waiting for.
— Harry Chapman
Management by objectives works
if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time
you don't.
— Peter Drucker
A debator becomes impotent if he has not one
with whom to debate.
— Robert J. Ringer
I know of nothing more
despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the
hours of the waking day to the making of money for
money's sake.
— John D. Rockefeller
To attempt too many things at once is to end up
completing none.
Instead of putting mediocre effort into a lot of
things, place excellent effort into a few significant
ones.
One important project carried to home plate will always
feel much more satisfying than three projects remaining
on first, second, and
third.
— from Life's Secret Handbook
Work as Hard as You Have to for a Comfortable Living
— and as Little as You Can Get Away With
— from Life's Secret Handbook
You can't earn more time, no matter how hard you
work.
And you can't buy it, no matter how much money you
have.
So spend it wisely, much more so than money.
— from Life's Secret Handbook
A day is a span of time no one is wealthy enough to
waste.
— Unknown Wise Person
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than
to be scoured
to nothing with perpetual motion.
— William Shakespeare
Well-arranged time is the surest mark of a
well-arranged mind.
— Sir Isaac Pitman
It is the superfluous things for which men
sweat.
— Seneca
What I do, I do very well, and what I don't do well,
I don't do at all.
— Unknown Wise Person
Success means only doing what you do well, letting
someone else do the rest.
— Goldstein S. Truism
Perfection is an elusive butterfly. When we cease to
demand perfection, the business of being happy becomes
much easier.
— Helen Keller
It is vain to do with more what can be done with
less.
— William of Occam
Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery
you miss by going too fast — you also miss the sense of
where you are going and why.
— Eddie Cantor
Most people complicate their lives more than they
care to admit.
Keep in mind that all it takes is a muddlehead to make
the simple
complicated. It takes a genius to make the complicated
simple, however.
The choice is yours:
Muddlehead or genius?
— from Life's Secret Handbook
We struggle with the complexities and avoid the
simplicities.
— Norman Vincent Peale
There is no greatness where there is not
simplicity.
— Leo Tolstoy
More than enough is too much.
— Unknown Wise Person
Nothing is enough to the man for whom enough is too
little.
— Epicurus
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things
he can afford
to let alone.
v Thoreau
Identify the important.
Also identify the unimportant.
Then filter out the unimportant.
And concentrate on the important.
You are now on your way to all the success you need in
life.
— from Life's Secret Handbook
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best
season of your life.
— Wu-Men
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the
unnecessary so that
the necessary may speak.
— Hans Hofmann
People waste more time waiting
for someone to take charge of their lives than they do
in any other pursuit.
— Gloria Steinem
Time is what we want most, but
…. what we use worst.
— William Penn
The time you enjoy wasting is
not wasted time.
— Laurence J. Peter
I cannot afford to
waste my time making money.
— Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (nineteenth-century Swiss
naturalist when asked to give a lecture for a
large fee)
The most wasted day of all is
that on which we have not laughed.
— Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort
If you burn the candle
at both ends, you are not as bright as you think.
— Unknown wise person
Nothing matters very much, and
few things matter at all.
— Earl Balfour
Do what's right, the
right way, at the right time.
— Arnold Glasow
It's easier to stay out of
trouble than get out of trouble.
— Unknown wise person
Refuse to be intimidated by the adage, "Anything
worth doing is worth doing well."
This is one of the most ridiculous statements ever
made.
The truth is, most things worth doing aren't worth your
best efforts.
There are just a few really important things that are
worth doing well.
After that, a greater number of things are worth doing
adequately.
Even more things are worth doing in the most haphazard
fashion possible just to get by.
Of course, most things aren't worth doing at all, best
left for the misfits of this world to pursue.
— from Life's Secret Handbook
Always take an emergency
leisurely.
— Chinese proverb
Never learn to do anything: if
you don't learn, you'll always find
someone else to do it for you.
— Mark Twain
What I do, I do very
well, and what I don't do well, I don't do at all.
— Unknown wise person
It is not worth while to go
round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.
— Henry David Thoreau
Make good use of bad
rubbish.
— Elizabeth Beresford
Never trouble another for what
you can do yourself.
— Thomas Jefferson
If a thing is worth doing, it is
worth doing badly.
— G. K. Chesterton
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.
— Henry David Thoreau
The time to relax is when you
don't have time for it.
— Sydney J. Harris
It was Einstein who made the
real trouble. He announced in 1905 that there was no
such thing as absolute rest. After that there never
was.
— Stephen Leacock
The quickest way to finish a project is not
to do it at all.
— Robert J. Ringer
One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a
man can do
for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You
can't eat eight
hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make
love for eight
hours — all you can do for eight hours is work.
Which is the reason
why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable
and unhappy.
— William Faulkner
Perpetual devotion to what a man
calls his business, is only to be
sustained by perpetual neglect of many other
things.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
The less effort, the faster and
more powerful you will be.
— Bruce Lee
People who know how to employ
themselves, always find leisure moments, while those
who do nothing are forever in a hurry.
— Jeanne-Marie Roland
Employ thy time well, if thou
meanest to gain leisure.
— Benjamin Franklin
One ought, every day
at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see
a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a
few reasonable words.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Drive thy business, or it will
drive thee.
— Benjamin Franklin
It is paradoxical but
nonetheless true that the nearer man comes to his goal
to make his life easy and abundant, the more he
undermines the foundations of a meaningful
existence.
— Franz Alexander
Success is important only to the
extent that it puts one in a position to do more things
one likes to do.
— Sarah Caldwell
If you are losing your leisure,
look out! You are losing your soul.
— Logan Pearsall Smith
Always do one thing less than
you think you can do.
— Bernard Baruch
It was such a lovely day I
thought it was a pity to get up.
— Somerset Maugham
A lazy person gives the
workaholic something worthwhile to do and
someone to feel happily superior to.
— Julia Swiggum
Instead of expending
time to train yourself not to be afraid of snakes,
avoid them altogether.
— Richard Koch
If you want a faster or easier
way to do something, give it to a lazy person.
— Unknown wise person
I am the laziest man
in the world. I invented all those things to save
myself from toil.
— Benjamin Franklin
The shortest way to do many
things is to do only one thing at once.
— Samuel Smiles
Think of many things
to do — do one.
— Portuguese proverb
One principle reason why men are
so often useless is that they divide and shift their
attention among a multiplicity of objects and
pursuits.
— G. Emmons
Understand the difference
between being at work and working.
— Unknown wise person
After all is said and done, more
is said than done.
— Unknown wise person
You cannot mandate productivity,
you must provide the tools to let people become their
best.
— Steve Jobs
Do every act of your life as if it were your
last.
— Marcus Aurelius
Don't interfere with something
that ain't bothering you.
— Unknown wise person
The biggest trouble maker you
will ever meet watches you shave or put makeup on your
face in the mirror every morning.
— Unknown wise person
Almost anything is easier to get
into than to get out of.
— Agnes Allen
No one can solve problems for
someone whose problem is that they don't want problems
solved.
— Richard Bach
To do nothing is also
a good remedy.
— Hippocrates
