Cal Newport Quotes



Best 26 Quotes by Cal Newport

Deep Work Quotes

“Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.”

Deep Work

“Deep work is necessary to wring every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity.”

Deep Work

“Great creative minds think like artists but work like accountants.”

Deep Work

“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets… it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”

Deep Work

“If you can’t learn, you can’t thrive.”

Deep Work

“If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.”

Deep Work

“If you service low-impact activities, therefore, you're taking away time you could be spending on higher-impact activities. It's a zero-sum game.”

Deep Work

“Once you’re wired for distraction, you crave it.”

Deep Work

“Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can produce a lot of valuable output.”

Deep Work

“To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction.”

Deep Work

“To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life, but from the perspective of concentration training, it’s incredibly valuable.”

Deep Work

“What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore—plays in defining the quality of our life.”

Deep Work

How to Win at College Quotes

“Do some good in the world for no other reason than wanting to be part of the solution.”

How to Win at College

“Start small and start immediately.”

How to Win at College

So Good They Can't Ignore You Quotes

“Do what Steve Jobs did, not what he said. If a young Steve Jobs had taken his own advice and decided to only pursue work he loved, we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center’s most popular teachers.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that’s exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands…”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

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“At every level, from the microcellular to the psychological, exercise not only wards off the ill effects of chronic stress; it can also reverse them.
Studies show that if researchers exercise rats that have been chronically stressed, that activity makes the hippocampus grow back to its preshriveled state.
The mechanisms by which exercise changes how we think and feel are so much more effective than donuts, medicines, and wine. When you say you feel less stressed out after you go for a swim, or even a fast walk, you are.”


More quotes by John J. Ratey

“If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (“what can the world offer me?”) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (“what can I offer the world?”).”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re probably stuck at an 'acceptable level'.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“No one owes you a great career, it argues; you need to earn it—and the process won’t be easy.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“Spend time on what’s important, instead of what’s immediate.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“The good news about deliberate practice is that it will push you past this plateau and into a realm where you have little competition.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“The happiest, most passionate employees are not those who followed their passion into a position, but instead those who have been around long enough to become good at what they do.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“The important thing about little bets is that they’re bite-sized. You try one. It takes a few months at most. It either succeeds or fails, but either way you get important feedback to guide your next steps.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“The three traits that make people love their work are impact, creativity, and control.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

“When deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek evidence of whether people are willing to pay for it. If you find this evidence, continue. If not, move on.”

So Good They Can't Ignore You

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“As we head toward the 'spring forward' daylight savings, I am reminded how these rules are based on total lack of how our circadian biology actually works.

I believe the solution is in educating our lawmakers. After all most of them look like their health could use a boost too!”


More quotes by Andrew D. Huberman