If you want to be powerful in life you have to enjoy the process. You have to get pleasure out of making the thing that you're making. There has to be that kind of purpose behind it. If your purpose is simply gaining power, if that becomes your end in life then you end up sort of destroying yourself because you lose the sense of detachment that's very necessary.

Some people are a little bit better than others, some people are great, some people are superior. It depends on the level of effort.

A lot of things in history are timing, and it's very peculiar because in retrospect things [and] people can look more brilliant or necessary than they actually were.

I've always been intrigued by fighter pilots and strategy because it occurs in like, milliseconds, you know.

We have consciousness and rational powers but unless you're willing to spend the time to gain control of yourself, gain control of your emotions, to think deeply about what you want in a year or two, or where you want your business to be, you're going to be swept away by every new event that occurs in the course of the day or the week and the small amount of time that you plan, that you address to conscious planning, is never enough to overcome the constant tide of emotions and new things happening.

It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.

I don't want to promote paranoia. It's not like wow, everybody is after me. You know that's not going to be very powerful. A person like Stalin was like that and he was powerful, but it ended up completely destroying him because he couldn't trust anyone.