Matthew Syed Quotes

#1. Failure is rich in learning opportunities for a simple reason: in many of its guises, it represents a violation of expectation.6 It is showing us that the world is in some sense different from the way we imagined it to be.

Matthew Syed

#2. Over my tenure as governor, I have come not only to respect the political muscle of the Federation; I've come to respect the brains. All of us depend on your efforts and energies.

George W. Bush

#3. There are faults we would fain pardon.

Horace

#4. When two peoples share a common passion: they are capable of empathising with each other's misery.

Matthew Syed

#5. It is partly because we are so willing to blame others for their mistakes that we are so keen to conceal our own. We

Matthew Syed

#6. I'm sure I am impatient sometimes. I sure do get angry sometimes. I think it's outrageous how hard it is to get this country to feed its children and to take care of its children, to give them a decent education.

Marian Wright Edelman

#7. Mere experience, if it is not matched by deep concentration, does not translate into excellence.

Matthew Syed

#8. World-class performance comes by striving for a target just out of reach, but with a vivid awareness of how the gap might be breached. Over time, through constant repetition and deep concentration, the gap will disappear, only for a new target to be created, just out of reach once again.

Matthew Syed

#9. The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.

Clarence Darrow

#10. My name might be Arrow, but it was Hopp who'd pierced my heart like one. I

Cambria Hebert

#11. The only way to be sure is to go out and test your ideas and programmes, and to realise that you will often be wrong. But that is not a bad thing. It leads to progress. This

Matthew Syed

#12. A decision made from fear is always the wrong decision.

Tony Robbins

#13. Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn't.

Matthew Syed

#14. The subversive idea at the centre of Ericsson's work is that excellence is not reserved for the lucky few but can be achieved by almost all of us.

Matthew Syed

#15. Last time I looked at a [pay]check, I said to myself, 'Who the hell is FICA? And when I meet him, I'm going to punch him in the face. Oh my God, FICA is killing me.'

Shaquille O'Neal

#16. Well, it doesn't work. Lowering standards just leads to poorly educated students who feel entitled to easy work and lavish praise.

Matthew Syed

#17. Never forget Yesu is King. Never forget your home is in another world. Never forget your father will be waiting to see you again.

Randy Alcorn

#18. Mindfulness, by helping us notice our impulses before we act, gives us the opportunity to decide whether to act and how to act

Gil Fronsdal

#19. Creativity is, in many respects, a response.

Matthew Syed

#20. I love tango, and I used to dance when I was young.

Pope Francis

#21. It is only by starting at an unusually young age and by practicing with such ferocious devotion that it is possible to accumulate ten thousand hours while still in adolescence. Far from being an exception to the ten-thousand-hour rule, Mozart is a shining testament to it.

Matthew Syed

#22. Progress is built, in effect, upon the foundations of necessary failure. That is the essential paradox of expert performance.

Matthew Syed