Quotes from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on. It is not just information overload; it is opinion overload.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“There should be no shame in admitting to a mistake; after all, we really are only admitting that we are now wiser than we once were.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“What do I feel deeply inspired by?” and “What am I particularly talented at?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people’s agendas to control our lives.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Just because I was invited didn’t seem a good enough reason to attend.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“A popular idea in Silicon Valley is “Done is better than perfect.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Sleep will enhance your ability to explore, make connections, and do less but better throughout your waking hours.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“We often think of choice as a thing. But a choice is not a thing. Our options may be things, but a choice—a choice is an action. It is not just something we have but something we do.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“the killer question: “If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to buy it?”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“EVERY DAY DO SOMETHING THAT WILL INCH YOU CLOSER TO A BETTER TOMORROW. —Doug Firebaugh”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Essentialism: only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“NO IS A COMPLETE SENTENCE. —Anne Lamott”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“What if society stopped telling us to buy more stuff and instead allowed us to create more space to breathe and think? What if society encouraged us to reject what has been accurately described as doing things we detest, to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like?11”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Once an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware, who cared for people in the last twelve weeks of their lives, recorded their most often discussed regrets. At the top of the list: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”6 This requires, not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials, and not just getting rid of the obvious time wasters, but cutting out some really good opportunities as well.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“The reality is, saying yes to any opportunity by definition requires saying no to several others.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“two most personal learnings that have come to me on the long journey of writing this book. The first is the exquisitely important role of my family in my life. At the very, very end, everything else will fade into insignificance by comparison. The second is the pathetically tiny amount of time we have left of our lives. For me this is not a depressing thought but a thrilling one. It removes fear of choosing the wrong thing. It infuses courage into my bones. It challenges me to be even more unreasonably selective about how to use this precious – and precious is perhaps too insipid a word – time.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Weniger aber besser. The English translation is: Less but better.”
― Greg McKeown, quote from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“Living to glorify God means doing everything...
for Him,
His way,
to point to His greatness
and to reflect His goodness.”
― Joshua Harris, quote from Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship

“All about them the golden girls, shopping for dainties in Lairville. Even in the midst of the wild-maned winter's chill, skipping about in sneakers and sweatsocks, cream-colored raincoats. A generation in the mold, the Great White Pattern Maker lying in his prosperous bed, grinning while the liquid cools. But he does not know my bellows. Someone there is who will huff and will puff. The sophmores in their new junior blazers, like Saturday's magazines out on Thursday. Freshly covered textbooks from the campus store, slide rules dangling in leather, sheathed broadswords, chinos scrubbed to the virgin fiber, starch pressed into straight-razor creases, Oxford shirts buttoned down under crewneck sweaters, blue eyes bobbing everywhere, stunned by the android synthesis of one-a-day vitamins, Tropicana orange juice, fresh country eggs, Kraft homogenized cheese, tetra-packs of fortified milk, Cheerios with sun-ripened bananas, corn-flake-breaded chicken, hot fudge sundaes, Dairy Queen root beer floats, cheeseburgers, hybrid creamed corn, riboflavin extract, brewer's yeast, crunchy peanut butter, tuna fish casseroles, pancakes and imitation maple syrup, chuck steaks, occasional Maine lobster, Social Tea biscuits, defatted wheat germ, Kellogg's Concentrate, chopped string beans, Wonderbread, Birds Eye frozen peas, shredded spinach, French-fried onion rings, escarole salads, lentil stews, sundry fowl innards, Pecan Sandies, Almond Joys, aureomycin, penicillin, antitetanus toxoid, smallpox vaccine, Alka-Seltzer, Empirin, Vicks VapoRub, Arrid with chlorophyll, Super Anahist nose spray, Dristan decongestant, billions of cubic feet of wholesome, reconditioned breathing air, and the more wholesome breeds of fraternal exercise available to Western man. Ah, the regimented good will and force-fed confidence of those who are not meek but will inherit the earth all the same.”
― Richard Fariña, quote from Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me

“Every man who invents something to kill other people easily, quickly and in as great numbers as possible is highly praised, he makes much money and a decoration is bestowed on him. That is good and right. War must be. But on the other hand the Europeans build many hospitals, and a man who during a war cures and feeds enemy soldiers is also praised and decorated”
― Kurban Said, quote from Ali and Nino: A Love Story

“He'll mind. I can see that he's very possessive of you--and very protective." He paused, then said, "Let him mind, Shori. Talk to him. Help him. Reassure him. Stop Violence. But let him feel what he feels and settle his feelings his own way."
"All right."
"...Let them see that you trust them and let them solve their own problems, make their own decisions. Do that and they will willingly commit their lives to you. Bully them, control them out of fear or malice or just for your own convenience, and after a while, you'll have to spend all your time thinking for them, controlling them, and stifling their resentment.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Fledgling

“Fox was quick to see how we could use you, but not sharp enough to credit you with ambition. But then he never lay all night with you on the beach at Kamakura, never listened to your nightmares, never heard an entire imagined childhood shift under those stars, shift and roll over, your child’s mouth opening to reveal some fresh past, and always the one, you swore, that was really and finally the truth.”
― William Gibson, quote from Burning Chrome

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.