I. Brief Summary
Peter Bevelin through real life examples shares lessons on how to think better, avoid making poor decisions, deal with world reality and cope through human misjudgement. Many of these lessons are centered around Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. The book is a collection of insights across numerous fields from biology, chemistry, physiology, psychology, physics, engineering, economics, statistics, math, business and more.
For this book, sharing any big ideas in form of brief notes would be a disservice because the book should be read in its entirety. Peter Bevelin took a year off to learn about rational thinking prominently shared by Buffett and Munger. Peter's work is applaudable because he did the all the hard work by sharing important lessons that can be applied in real life by just anyone.
The book also covers lessons from Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Michael de Montaigne and more. This book is an encyclopedia of great thinkers and their mindsets.
II. Quotes
- A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake. — Confucius
- All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there. — Charlie Munger
- The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. — Rene Descartes
- Our life is what our thoughts make it. — Marcus Aurelius
- Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers. — Lucuys Annaeus Seneca
- Always do what you fear. — R.W. Emerson
- Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them far apart. — Confucius
- The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor. — Charlie Munger
- The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. — Samuel Johnson
- We do not improve the man we hang: we improve others by him. — Michel de Montaigne
- It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair
- Whose bread I eat, his song I sing. — German proverb
- Understand people's motivations. Money, status, power, envy?
- Do not train boys to learning by force and harshness, but lead them by what amuses them, so that they may better discover the bent of their minds. — Plato
- If the only tool you have is a hammer, you approach every problem as if it were a nail. — English proverb
- An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind. — Dr. Albert Schweitzer
- It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. — Charlie Munger
- Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied. — Mark Twain
- The best way to avoid envy is to deserve the success you get. — Aristotle
- The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. — William James
- Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours. — Benjamin Disraeli
- He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged. — Benjamin Franklin
- If 40 million people say a foolish thing, it does not become a wise one. — Somerset Maugham
- What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end. — Warren Buffett