If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now?

Today's 'best practices' lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried.

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.

The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that's very different from the present.

I do think Bitcoin is the first [encrypted money] that has the potential to do something like change the world.

Every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.

In the '30s, the Keynesian stuff worked at least in the sense that you could print money without inflation because there was all this productivity growth happening. That's not going to work today.

Under perfect competition, in the long run no company makes an economic profit.

The most fundamental reason that even businesspeople underestimate the importance of sales is the systematic effort to hide it at every level of every field in a world secretly driven by it.

Of the six people who started PayPal, four had built bombs in high school.

Young people have limited choices, but they are also useful human resources.

It never ceases to amaze me that in times of amazing human suffering somebody says something that can be so utterly stupid.

Real freedom for people can only exist whenever there is security and independence.

I always want my books to reach a positive point in the end.

I've always had a fondness for language... English. Not that I use it correctly but I like words. I like books and I like poetry.. I like the written word... and the sung word.

Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.

We all go through life and say a lot of things that we don't really mean.

In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.

I dont get distracted until the weight of other things left undone finally tips the balance; my mind is flooded with calls, bills, supermarkets, letters, and I have to stop and sort things out.

When I'm in northern Italy, I walk about feeling slightly less of a freak.