QuoteProject
When you are eighty years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.
Jeff Bezos
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Our lives are defined by the choices we make over time.

This quote emphasizes the significance of the choices we make throughout our lives, suggesting that when we reflect on our past, the essence of our existence will be captured in those choices. Jeff Bezos highlights that our identities and life stories are shaped not by external circumstances, but by the decisions we consciously choose to take.

Themes

ChoicesLifeReflectionMeaningIdentity

In practice

Example use cases

During a graduation speech to inspire students to consider their future choices.

More from Jeff Bezos

We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
Jeff BezosRead
Work hard, have fun and make history.
Jeff BezosRead
If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve.
Jeff BezosRead
But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.
Jeff BezosRead
Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
Jeff BezosRead
We've done price elasticity studies, and the answer is always that we should raise prices. We don't do that, because we believe -- and we have to take this as an article of faith -- that by keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term.
Jeff BezosRead

Similar quotes

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
Virginia WoolfRead
Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don't think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children.
Malala YousafzaiRead
I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough
Jacqueline NovogratzRead
As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected. Circumstances may have prevented his ever setting foot there, but it remains his country.
Albert J. NockRead
The trace left behind is substituted for the practice. It exhibits the (voracious) property that the geographical system has of being able to transform action into legibility, but in doing so it causes a way of being in the world to be forgotten.
Michel De CerteauRead
She [Alice] went on "And how do you know that you're mad?" "To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?" "I suppose so," said Alice. "Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags it's tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."
Lewis CarrollRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Jeff Bezos | QuoteProject