It's good to test yourself and develop your talents and ambitions as fully as you can and achieve greater success; but I think success is the feeling you get from a job well done, and the key thing is to do the work.
Peter ThielRead
People working on bigger ideas on a more protracted timeline will be more on the stealth side. They aren’t releasing new PR announcements every day. The bigger the secret and the likelier it is that you alone have it, the more time you have to execute. There may be far more people going after hard secrets than we think.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Big ideas take time to develop and often require discretion.
This quote by Peter Thiel emphasizes the importance of working on significant, long-term projects discreetly rather than seeking constant attention. He suggests that true innovation often involves secrecy and patience, as significant breakthroughs may take longer to realize and are usually not accompanied by frequent public announcements.
Themes
SecrecyInnovationPatienceBig IdeasExecution
In practice
Example use cases
During a business presentation, to emphasize the importance of discretion in long-term projects.
More from Peter Thiel
All quotes →The first question we would ask if aliens landed on this planet is not, 'What does this mean for the economy or jobs?' It would be, 'Are they friendly or unfriendly?'
Peter ThielRead
What is it about our society where anyone who does not have Asperger's gets talked out of their heterodox ideas?
Peter ThielRead
Every time you write an email, it is in the public domain. There are all these ways where security is not as good as people believe.
Peter ThielRead
Creating value isn't enough - you also need to capture some of the value you create.
Peter ThielRead
A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance. You are not a lottery ticket.
Peter ThielRead
Similar quotes
Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.
HomerRead
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Francis BaconRead
Christ's resurrection doesn't mean escaping from the world; it means mission to the world based on Jesus's lordship over the world.
N. T. WrightRead
The danger of psychedelic drugs, the danger of mind-opening, the danger of consciousness expansion, the danger of inner discovery is a danger to the establishment.
Timothy LearyRead
Though dreams can be deceiving; like faces are to hearts, they serve for sweet relieving, when fantasy and reality lie too far apart.
Fiona AppleRead
In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternity figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.
Carl JungRead