100 Best Naval Ravikant Quotes That'll Get You Out Of Bed In The Morning

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Updated: November 16th, 2021

100 Best Naval Ravikant Quotes That'll Get You Out Of Bed In The Morning

Naval does many things with his life and career - but to put it simply, he’s a tech entrepreneur, investor, and consultant.

Naval reaches his loyal audience of 600,000 followers on Twitter - and is also featured on famous podcasts and talk shows.

Naval has a lot to give this world - and we put together 100 of his best quotes/advice to prove just how inspiring he is.

“Morality and ethics automatically emerge when we realize the long term consequences of our actions.”
“You make your own luck if you stay at it long enough.”
“Politics is sports writ large — pick a side, rally the tribe, exchange stories confirming bias, hurl insults and threats at the other side.”
“Knowledge is a skyscraper. You can take a shortcut with a fragile foundation of memorization, or build slowly upon a steel frame of understanding.”
“Earn with your mind, not your time.”
“People spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing.”
“Technology is not only the thing that moves the human race forward, but it’s the only thing that ever has. Without technology, we’re just monkeys playing in the dirt.”
“If the primary purpose of school was education, the Internet should obsolete it. But school is mainly about credentialing.”
“A busy mind accelerates the perceived passage of time. Buy more time by cultivating peace of mind.”
“A contrarian isn’t one who always objects — that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.”
“Happiness is a state where nothing is missing.”
“A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.”
“Even today, what to study and how to study it are more important than where to study it and for how long. The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”
“One of the most damaging and widespread social beliefs is the idea that most adults are incapable of learning new skills.”
“We’re not really here for that long and we don’t really matter that much. And nothing that we do lasts. So eventually you will fade. Your works will fade. Your children will fade. Your thoughts will fade. This planet will fade. The sun will fade. It will all be gone.”
“Crypto is a bet against the modern macroeconomic dogma, which is passed off as science, but is really a branch of politics — with rulers, winners, and losers.”
“Lots of literacy in modern society, but not enough numeracy.”
“The power to make and break habits and learning how to do that is really important.”
“You have to surrender, at least a little bit, to be the best version of yourself possible.”
“Love is given, not received.”
“Sophisticated foods are bittersweet (wine, beer, coffee, chocolate). Addictive relationships are cooperative and competitive. Work becomes flow at the limits of ability. The flavor of life is on the edge.”
“The people who succeed are irrationally passionate about something.”
“If you don’t love yourself who will?”
“Branding requires accountability. To build a great personal brand (an eponymous one), you must take on the risk of being publicly wrong.”
“Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest & positive.”
“Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority.”
“If they can train you to do it, then eventually they will train a computer to do it.”
“The older the problem, the older the solution.”
“All the real benefits of life come from compound interest.”
“Social media has degenerated into a deafening cacophony of groups signaling and repeating their shared myths.”
“The problem happens when we have multiple desires. When we have fuzzy desires. When we want to do ten different things and we’re not clear about which is the one we care about.”
“People who try to look smart by pointing out obvious exceptions actually signal the opposite.”
“This is such a short and precious life that it’s really important that you don’t spend it being unhappy.”
“Politics is the exercise of power without merit.”
“Smart money is just dumb money that’s been through a crash.”
“Every moment has to be complete in and of itself.”
“People who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can’t fathom.”
“We feel guilt when we no longer want to associate with old friends and colleagues who haven’t changed. The price, and marker, of growth.”
“Technology is applied science. Science is the study of nature. Mathematics is the language of nature. Philosophy is the root of mathematics. All tightly interrelated.”
“Watch every thought. Always ask, why am I having this thought?”
“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.”
“Success is the enemy of learning. It can deprive you of the time and the incentive to start over. Beginner’s mind also needs beginner’s time.”
“All the benefits in life come from compound interest — money, relationships, habits — anything of importance.”
“Truth is that which has predictive power.”
“Investing favors the dispassionate. Markets efficiently separate emotional investors from their money.”
“So I have no time for short-term things: dinners with people I won’t see again, tedious ceremonies to please tedious people, traveling to places that I wouldn’t go to on vacation.”
“Happiness is a choice and a skill and you can dedicate yourself to learning that skill and making that choice.”
“Information is everywhere but its meaning is created by the observer that interprets it. Meaning is relative and there is no objective, over-arching meaning.”
“If you see a get rich quick scheme, that’s someone else trying to get rich off of you.”
“Humans are basically habit machines… I think learning how to break habits is actually a very important meta skill and can serve you in life almost better than anything else.”
“Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else.” (Buddhist saying)
“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.”
“Mathematics is the language of nature.”
“Politics and merit are opposite ends of a spectrum. More political organizations are less productive, have less inequality, and top performers opt out. More merit based organizations have higher productivity, more inequality, and higher odds of internal fracture.”
“If you’re more passionate about founding a business than the business itself, you can fall into a ten year trap. Better to stay emotionally unattached and select the best opportunity that arises. Applies to relationships too.”
“Think clearly from the ground up. Understand and explain from first principles. Ignore society and politics. Acknowledge what you have. Control your emotions.”
“Before you can lie to another, you must first lie to yourself.”
“Forty hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes — train and sprint, then rest and reassess.”
“You’re never going to get rich renting out your time.”
“You can have the mind or you can have the moment.”
“Don’t debate people in the media when you can debate them in the marketplace.”
“Escape competition through authenticity.”
“I don’t have time is just saying it’s not a priority.”
“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
“Wealth creation is an evolutionarily recent positive-sum game. Status is an old zero-sum game. Those attacking wealth creation are often just seeking status.”
“If it entertains you now but will bore you someday, it’s a distraction. Keep looking.”
“Be present above all else.”
“Caught in a funk? Use meditation, music, and exercise to reset your mood. Then choose a new path to commit emotional energy for rest of day.”
“The secret to public speaking is to speak as if you were alone.”
“The Efficient Markets Hypothesis fails because humans are herd animals, not independent rational actors. Thus the best investors tend to be antisocial and contrarian.”
“The real struggle isn’t proletariat vs bourgeois. It’s between high-status elites and wealthy elites. When their cooperation breaks, revolution.”
“If being ethical were profitable everybody would do it.”
“You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you would leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it. It’s that struggle, that aversion, that is responsible for most of our misery. The phrase that I use the most to myself in my head is one word: accept.”
“Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed.”
“Reality is neutral. Our reactions reflect back and create our world. 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. Heaven and hell are right here, right now.”
“If you’re desensitized to the fact that you’re going to die, consider it a different way. As far as you’re concerned, this world is going to end. Now what?”
“If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day.”
“A personal metric: how much of the day is spent doing things out of obligation rather than out of interest?”
“Society has had multiple stores of value, as none is perfectly secure. Gold, oil, dollars, real estate, (some) bonds & equities. Crypto is the first that’s decentralized and digital.”
“It’s the mark of a charlatan to try and explain simple things in complex ways and it’s the mark of a genius to explain complicated things in simple ways.”
“Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts.”
“Who you do business with is just as important as what you choose to do.”
“The fundamental delusion — there is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.”
“Signaling virtue is a vice.”
“If you try to micromanage yourself all you’re going to do is make yourself miserable.”
“To be honest, speak without identity.”
“I don’t plan. I’m not a planner. I prefer to live in the moment and be free and to flow and to be happy.”
“Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Mentors won’t make you rich. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility. Save yourself.”
“All greatness comes from suffering.”
“Following your genuine intellectual curiosity is a better foundation for a career than following whatever is making money right now.”
“Above “product-market fit” is “founder-product-market fit.”
“The first rule of handling conflict is don’t hang around people who are constantly engaging in conflict.”
“A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control.”
“Objectively, the world is improving. To the elites, it’s falling apart as their long-lived institutions are flattened by the Internet.”
“Someone who is using a lot of fancy words and big concepts probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The smartest people can explain things to a child; if you can’t do that, you don’t understand the concept.”
“School, politics, sports, and games train us to compete against others. True rewards — wealth, knowledge, love, fitness, and equanimity — come from ignoring others and improving ourselves.”

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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