"The famous seventeenth-century Ming painter Chou Yung relates a story that altered his behavior forever.

Late one winter afternoon he set out to visit a town that lay across the river from his own town.

He was bringing some important books and papers with him and had commissioned a young boy to help him carry them.

As the ferry neared the other side of the river, Chou Yung asked the boatman if they would have time to get to the town before its gates closed, since it was a mile away and night was approaching.

The boatman glanced at the boy, and at the bundle of loosely tied papers and books—“Yes,” he replied, “if you do not walk too fast.”

As they started out, however, the sun was setting.

Afraid of being locked out of the town at night, prey to local bandits, Chou and the boy walked faster and faster, finally breaking into a run.

Suddenly the string around the papers broke and the documents scattered on the ground.

It took them many minutes to put the packet together again, and by the time they had reached the city gates, it was too late.

When you force the pace out of fear and impatience, you create a nest of problems that require fixing, and you end up taking much longer than if you had taken your time."

"There's an apocryphal story that is very instructive:

A young man comes to visit Mozart.

He says: 'Mozart, I want to write symphonies.'

And Mozart says: 'How old are you?'

The man says: 'I'm 23.'

Mozart says: 'You're too young to write symphonies.'

He says: 'But Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 10 years old.'

Mozart says: 'Yes, but I wasn't asking other people how to do it.'“

"The truth of the matter is that not everybody can learn everything. Some people are way the hell better.

And, of course, no matter how hard you try there's always some guy or gal that achieves more. My attitude is: 'So, what. Does any of us need to be at the top of the whole world? It's ridiculous.’"

"When you play games where other people have the aptitude and you don't, you're going to lose. You have to figure out where you have an edge and stick to it."

"My favorite Charlie Munger story:

In 1953, Munger was 29 years old.

Recently divorced. Lost the house. Huge social stigma of divorce back then.

His 8-year-old son, Teddy, was diagnosed with cancer.

The leukemia was incurable.

No medical insurance - Munger paid for all his medical care.

Charlie would visit Teddy in the hospital every day -- and then walk the streets crying.

Teddy died at the age of 9.

Charlie was broke, divorced and just lost his child.

99.9% of people would've turned to alcohol, drugs, or [some other coping mechanism] (And you'd understand why)

Munger never did.

Fast forward to 52 years old, a failed surgery left him blind in one eye with the potential of going fully blind one day.

Charlie was an obsessive learner who read every book he could get his hands on.

When confronted with the possibility of going blind and no longer being able to read he said:

'It's time for me to learn braille!'

The only thing that might be more impressive than his intellect was his actions."

"Every time you find your drifting into self-pity, I don’t care what the cause, your child could be dying from cancer, self-pity is not going to improve the situation. It’s a ridiculous way to behave."

"I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and that your duty was not to be immersed in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea."