More specifially, on books about “how to succeed”:

It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating. Both are much too simple to require any literary explanation.

The Fallacy Of Success - G. K. Chesterton

Any first rate novel or story must have in it the strength of a dozen fairly good stories that have been sacrificed to it. A good workman can’t be a cheap workman; he can’t be stingy about wasting material, and he cannot compromise.

On The Art Of Fiction - Willa Cather

mr youse needn’t be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man’s solid bliss
for youse ideas i’ll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

(via)
mr youse needn't be so spry by Edward Estlin Cummings

The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out.

Books Which Have Influenced Me - Robert Louis Stevenson

It’s terrible to be a bad loser. I like Soros’s proverb that you should never marry a woman you wouldn’t want to divorce.

The Wrong Stuff : Hoodoos, Hedge Funds, and Alibis: Victor Niederhoffer on Being Wrong

I love the Cup because it stripped away all the things about professional sports that I’ve come to despise. No sideline reporters. No JumboTron. No TV timeouts. No onslaught of replays after every half-decent play. No gimmicky team names like the “Heat” or the “Thunder.” (You know what the announcers call Germany? The Germans. I love this.) No announcers breathlessly overhyping everything or saying crazy things to get noticed. We don’t have to watch 82 mostly half-assed games to get to the playoffs. We don’t have 10 graphics on the screen at all times. We don’t have to sit there for four hours waiting for a winner because pitchers are taking 25 seconds to deliver a baseball.

Bill Simmons: World Cup's 20 questions - ESPN

Ben Casnocha infers two myths from Derek Sivers’ How to Get Hired:

The first is that we all have one or two things we are destined to do. In fact, I think you can become good (and thus) really interested in a range of things. The second is that the way to find what you “really want to do” is through inspection and reflection. In fact, introspection seems never to bear the fruit you’re promised; personal discoveries and self-knowledge seem sooner found via experiments and activity.

Ben Casnocha: The Blog: How to Get Hired

For the Documerica Project (1971-1977), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s.

DOCUMERICA Project by the Environmental Protection Agency

Fidel Castro has a blog, apparently. Recent posts focus on the World Cup and the coming nuclear war.

Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe

A digest of advice from the masses.

The War on Mediocrity - Meta-MetaFiltered wisdom

Peers have an effect on your own ambition. More money acquired → more happiness. More money desired → less happiness. I like Eric Barker’s 3-point takeaway near the end, too.

What's the relationship between money, ambition, and happiness? - Barking up the wrong tree