Gem Box
Our curated trove of timeless wisdom
Shower thoughts, inspiring quotes, mind-blowing facts, excerpts from good books, and life lessons learned.
lesson
Never burn bridges.
quote
Madness is something rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule.
― Friedrich Nietzsche
excerpt
You need to be able to get rid of everything you've ever believed in before. You need to get rid of all the strategies you've used before. All the conventional ideas.
Source: The Daily Laws (Robert Greene)
quote
It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
― William of Occam
quote
It's not possible to reach new destinations with known routes.
― unknown
quote
Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
― Roald Dahl
fact
There are more voxels (3D pixels) in a mm³ than there are mm³ in the observable universe.
Source: Quantum Mechanics
quote
Do the work and the work will do the rest.
― Rick Rubin
thought
Darwin's law of Natural Selection is the equivalent to the Second Law of Thermodynamics for animate matter.
thought
Create more than you consume.
quote
Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.
― Doris Lessing
quote
Happiness isn’t something you find. It’s what’s left when you get rid of all the things that make you unhappy.
― Jason Portnoy
quote
If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.
― Ashleigh Brilliant
excerpt
Any moment where you're not having a great time, when you're not really happy, you're not doing anyone any favors. It's not like your unhappiness makes them better off somehow. All you're doing is wasting this incredibly small and precious time you have on this Earth.
Source: Navalmanack (Naval)
quote
If you are going through hell, keep going.
― Winston Churchill
excerpt
If there is a difference between elegance and simplicity, it's too subtle for me.
Source: The Cosmic Landscape (Leonard Susskind)
quote
What's important is seldom urgent, and what's urgent is seldom important.
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
thought
Everything is an opportunity.
excerpt
The older the problem, the older the solution.
Source: Navalmanack (Eric Jorgenson)
quote
Most people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they’re 75.
― Benjamin Franklin
quote
He who works all day, has no time to make money.
― John D. Rockefeller
quote
The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God.
― Antoni Gaudí
thought
The only way to wealth is leverage.
thought
The goal of exercising is to convert negative energy into kinetic energy and heat.
quote
One day you will wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted. Do it now.
― Paulo Coelho
excerpt
An optimistic attitude is largely inherited... Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failure and hardship, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer.
Source: Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
fact
All humans alive today – Black, White, Asian, Latin and Native – decent from a single mother, known as Mitochondrial Eve. According to most recent estimates she lived around 150,000 years ago. We are all brothers and sisters.
Source: Wikipedia
quote
Nobody's free until everyone's free.
― Fannie Lou Hamer
quote
To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.
― Leonardo Da Vinci
fact
98% of the 7 billion billion billion atoms in the human body are replaced every year.
Source: @WorldAndScience
quote
The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.
― Ronald Reagan
quote
The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.
― Paulo Coehlo
thought
A lot of people think happiness can be found when it actually needs to be created.
quote
When power is discovered Man will always turn to it.
― William Bateson
quote
Speak in extremes, it'll save you time.
― David Bowie
excerpt
Time is emergent. It makes only sense to talk about time where we can also talk about heat.
Source: Reality is not what it seems (Carlo Rovelli)
quote
Science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
― Isaac Asimov
thought
Don't use the average human as reference, use the limits of Physics.
excerpt
...consciousness is an emergent property of the overall pattern of an entity, not the substrate it runs on.
Source: How to Create a Mind (Ray Kurzweil)
quote
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
― George Bernard Shaw
quote
We incentivize what we react to.
― Jack Butcher
thought
In modern society economic pressure has largely taken the role of evolutionary pressure.
excerpt
The opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.
Source: Alchemy (Rory Sutherland)
excerpt
Time is an illusion.
Source: The Order of Time (Carlo Rovelli)
quote
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
― Alexis Carrel
fact
The state of Hawai'i introducedthe Aloha Spirit law in 1986, which mandates that state officials and judges treat the public with Aloha.
Source: Wikipedia
quote
Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
― Dick Feynman
thought
Focus and creativity are opposites, the magic happens when you find the right balance between the two.
excerpt
In order for the British mind to be sharpened by caffeine the Chinese mind had to be clouded by opium.
Source: Caffeine (Michael Pollan)
quote
Time is the ultimate currency.
― Naval Ravikant
fact
We have about 3 billion heartbeats, that's it.
Source: The Big Picture (book)
quote
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
― Dante Alighieri
thought
Expectations are poison.
quote
Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference.
― Blaise Pascal
quote
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
― Leonardo da Vinci
