This collection of Kevin Kelly Quotes highlights 50 powerful life lessons from his book Excellent Advice for Living, which features over 450 thought-provoking aphorisms packed with wisdom and practicality.
I first stumbled upon Kevin Kelly’s Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier during one of those late-night missions every parent knows too well—finding something meaningful for my teen daughter.
She’s at that beautiful, bittersweet stage, ready to spread her wings and step out of the cocoon we’ve carefully built around her.
As her mom, I want to arm her with everything she needs: wisdom, resilience, and maybe a sprinkle of humor.
But here’s the catch—teens don’t precisely take advice from parents the way we hope, do they?
Let’s be real—whatever pearls of wisdom we try to drop often get labeled as lectures.
Somehow, we go from being their favorite humans to these walking, talking “nag machines” who apparently exist to ruin their fun.
And to them, advice from us is just another word for complaint.
So, I thought, maybe a book—something simple, relatable, and packed with wisdom that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from me—could do the trick.
Enter Kevin Kelly and his magical little book.
The title had me hooked, and I couldn’t stop once I started reading.
This wasn’t just advice for my teen; it was advice for me, you, and honestly, anyone trying to figure out this thing called life.
Even as a parent who’s seen her fair share of ups and downs, I found myself nodding, smiling, and dog-earing page after page. These aren’t grand philosophical musings or unattainable ideals.
They’re practical, thoughtful, and sometimes delightfully quirky nuggets of wisdom that seem to work—or at least they’re working for me (fingers crossed, because if they’re helping me, I’m hopeful they’ll do the same for my teen daughter).
I could only imagine how much this could help someone starting their journey or even someone feeling stuck and needing a gentle nudge forward.
And then, I decided to share this wisdom with my readers, too, because someone might need it. One of my teachers told me that good advice is not meant to be hoarded or kept tucked away on a bookshelf; it’s intended to be passed on, like a cherished recipe or a hilarious story that brings people together. I’ve been doing that since then, hoping it reaches someone who needs it the most.
Do me a favor—don’t keep these nuggets to yourself. If they work for you, spread the love! Hand them off to your kids, your best friend, or even your parents (yes, even they could use a little life advice). Because let’s face it, who doesn’t want a life that’s a smidge fuller, a pinch kinder, and a whole lot wiser?
Kevin Kelly Quotes: Life Lessons That Stick Like Glue
Advice like these are not laws. They are like hats. If one doesn’t fit, try another.
Prototype your life. Try stuff instead of making grand plans.
Don’t be the best. Be the only.
What you do instead of work might become your real work.
Be frugal in all things except in your passions.
Your passions should fit you exactly but your purpose in life should exceed you. Work for something much larger than yourself.
You will complete your mission in life when you figure out what your mission in life is. Your purpose is to discover your purpose. This is not a paradox. This is the way.
Admitting that “I don’t know” at least once a day will make you a better person.
You can be whatever you want to be, so be the person who ends meetings early.
Art is whatever you can get away with.
Making art is not selfish; it’s for the rest of us. If you don’t do your thing you are cheating us
Don’t treat people as bad as they are. Treat them as good as you are.
When someone is nasty, hateful, or mean toward you treat their behavior like an affliction or illness they have. That makes it easier to have empathy toward them which can soften the conflict.
It’s thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.
Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. Unwavering honesty will help seal in trust.
It’s possible that a not-so-smart person who can communicate well can do much better than a super-smart person who can’t communicate well. That is good news because it is much easier to improve your communication skills than your intelligence.
This is the best time ever to make something. None of the greatest, coolest creations 20 years from now have been invented yet. You are not late.
Be a good ancestor. Do something a future generation will thank you for. A simple thing is to plant a tree.
Contemplating the weaknesses of others is easy; contemplating the weaknesses in yourself is hard but it pays a much higher reward.
When you give away 10% of your income, you lose 10% of your purchasing power, which is minor compared to the 110% increase in happiness you will gain.
The foundation of maturity: Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.
Finite games are played to win or lose. Infinite games are played to keep the game going. Seek out infinite games because they yield unlimited rewards.
The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.
Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.
If you are not embarrassed by your past self, you have probably not grown up yet.
A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.
Your best response to an insult is ‘You’re probably right.’ Often they are.
To get your message across, follow this formula used by ad writers everywhere: simplify, simplify, simplify, then exaggerate.
That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult —if you don’t lose it.
You are never too young to wonder ‘Why am I still doing this?’ You need to have an excellent answer.
The best way to advise young people is to find out what they really want to do and then advise them to do it.
The very best thing you can do for your kids is to love your spouse.
To be remarkable, read books.
Reading to your children regularly is the best school they will ever get.
Read the books that your favorite authors once read.
When a child asks an endless string of ‘Why?’ questions, the smartest reply is ‘I don’t know, what do you think?
Instead of asking your child what they learned today, ask them who they helped today.
The best way to learn anything is to try to teach what you know.
Separate the processes of creating from improving. You can’t write and edit or sculpt and polish or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.
We lack rites of passage. Create a memorable family ceremony when your child reaches legal adulthood between eighteen and twenty-one. This moment will become a significant touchstone in their life.
Invent as many family rituals as you can handle with ease. Anything done on a schedule – large or small, significant or silly – can become a ritual. Repeated consistently, small routines become legendary. Anticipation is key.
For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should, but double the time with them.
Embrace pronoia, which is the opposite of paranoia. Choose to believe that the entire universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success.
Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe. And you can get better at it. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.
It is impossible for you to become poor by giving. It is impossible for you to become wealthy without giving.
When someone tells you what ticks them off they are telling you what makes them tick.
Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become.
The easy choice pays off right away. The best choice will pay off at the end.
When you are young, spend at least 6 months to 1 year living as cheaply as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent. That way any time you have to risk something in the future, you won’t be afraid of the “worst-case” scenario.
See that old person taking forever in line? That is the future you. Have patience.
To keep young kids behaving well on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite unwrapped candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.
Whenever you have a choice between being right or being kind, be kind. No exceptions. Don’t confuse kindness with weakness.
How to apologize: quickly, specifically, sincerely. Don’t ruin an apology with an excuse.
A proper apology consists of conveying the 3 Rs: regret (genuine empathy with the other) responsibility (not blaming someone else) and remedy (your willingness to fix it).
What you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days.
To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed.
When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often, simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make ‘explaining the problem’ part of your troubleshooting process.
When you are stuck, make a long list of everything that cannot possibly work. On that list will be a seed that leads to a solution that will work.
Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible, rather aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.
What you actually pay for something can be twice the listed price because the energy, time, and money needed to set it up, learn, maintain, repair it, and then dispose of it when done all have their own cost. Not all prices appear on labels.
The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they’ll find you. To be interesting, be interested.
To be interesting, just tell your own story with uncommon honesty.
Criticize in private, praise in public.
Compliment people behind their backs. It’ll come back to you.
Unhappiness comes from wanting what others have. Happiness comes from wanting what you already have.
When you find something you really enjoy, do it slowly.
Don’t reserve your kindest praise for a person until their eulogy. Tell them while they are alive, when it makes a difference to them, Write it in a letter they can keep.
Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them; they are waiting for you to send them an email; they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.
To cultivate a habit switch your language from ‘I can or can’t do! to ‘I do or don’t do.” You shift the weight from a wavering choice to an unwavering identity.
The fact that you ‘can’t do’ something can be embarrassing. But if you are ‘learning to do’ something that is admirable. There are only tiny baby steps between can’t and learning.
Half the skill of being educated is learning what you can ignore.
Ignore what others may be thinking of you because they aren’t thinking of you.
Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits. Don’t focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout.
The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it.
You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.
The purpose of listening is not to reply, but to hear what is not being said.
Generally, say less than necessary.
A wise man said: Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself, “Is it true?” At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?” At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?
Listening well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?” until there is no more.
Even if you don’t say anything if you listen carefully people will consider you a great conversationalist.
Speak confidently as if you are right, but listen carefully as if you are wrong.
Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.
Rule of 3 in conversation: To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and then once more. The third time’s answer is the one closest to the truth.
The advantage of a ridiculously ambitious goal is that it sets the bar very high so even if your effort falls short, it may exceed an ordinary success.
Recipe for success: underpromise and overdeliver.
Keep showing up. 99% of success is just showing up. In fact, most success is just persistence.
Shorten your to-do list by asking yourself, ‘What is the worst that will happen if this does not get done?’ Eliminate all but the disasters.
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong. A good question to ask yourself today is, What might I be wrong about? This is the only worry worth having.
Life gets better as you replace transactions with relationships.
Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.
Each time you connect to people bring them a blessing; then they’ll be happy to see you when you bring them a problem.
You need teachers, parents, customers, fans, and friends because they will see who you are becoming before you will.
It is the duty of a teacher to get everything out of a student, and the duty of a student to get everything out of a teacher.
Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do friends can do better. In so many ways, a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.
Treating a person to a meal never fails and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.
Copying others is a good way to start. Copying yourself is a disappointing way to end.
To transcend the influence of your heroes copy them shamelessly like a student until you get them out of your system. That is the way of all masters.
To manage yourself, use your head. To manage others, use your heart.
If we all threw our troubles into a big pile, and we saw everyone else’s problems, we would immediately grab ours back.
Pay attention to who you are around when you feel your best. Be with them more often.
To be rich, you don’t need to make more money; you chiefly need to better manage the money already flowing through your hands.
Three things you need: The ability to not give up something till it works, the ability to give up something that does not work, and the trust in other people to help you distinguish between the two.
In all things except love - start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.
You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.
Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid, because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.
Be prepared: When you have 90% of a large project completed, finishing the final details will take another 90%. Houses and films are famous for having two 90%s.
When you get invited to do something in the future, ask yourself: Would I do this tomorrow? Not too many promises will pass that immediacy filter.
Fear makes people do stupid things, so don’t trust anything made in fear.
Anger is not the proper response to anger. When you see someone angry you are seeing their pain. Compassion is the proper response to anger.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Don’t wait for the storm to pass; dance in the rain.
Curiosity is fatal to certainty. The more curious you are the less certain you’ll be.
Constantly search for overlapping areas of agreement and dwell there. Disagreements will appear to be edge cases.
Learn how to learn from those you disagree with or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.
Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about. It won’t be obvious and your job is to discover what it is.
Don’t bother asking a barber if you need a haircut. Pay attention to incentives.
It’s stupid stubbornness and reckless foolishness if the goal does not matter, and relentless perseverance and courage if it does.
If the cost of something is not advertised, it is a sign that it’s more than you can afford.
You owe everyone a second chance, but not a third.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will.
Most overnight successes - in fact, any significant successes – take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.
You don’t need more time because you already have all the time that you will ever get; you need more focus.
For maximum results focus on your biggest opportunities not your biggest problems.
About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
Your time and space are limited. Remove, give away, throw out anything that no longer gives you joy in order to make room for those that do.
Be strict with yourself, and forgiving of others. The reverse is hell for everyone.
Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never get.
When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.
The best way to get to yes in a negotiation is to truly understand what yes means for the other party.
Train employees well enough that they could get another job, but treat them well enough that they never want to.
When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers.
Your best job will be one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact, only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.
When you are looking for a job, remember that somewhere an employer is desperately hunting for someone like you especially if you are unconventional. Your real job is to make that match happen and it is worth whatever time it takes.
Whenever you can’t decide which path to take, pick the one that produces change.
Your golden ticket is being able to see things from other people’s point of view. This shift enables heartfelt empathy. It also allows you to persuade others and it is the key to great design. Mastering the view through the eyes of others will unlock so many doors.
A superpower worth cultivating is learning from people you don’t like. It is called “humility.” This is the courage to let dumb, stupid, hateful, crazy, mean people teach you something because despite their character flaws they each know something you don’t.
The trick to making wise decisions is to evaluate your choices as if you were looking back 25 years from today. What would your future self think?
Our descendants will achieve things that amaze us, yet a portion of what they will create could have been made with today’s materials and tools if we had had the imagination. Think bigger.
Constantly asking yourself “what-if?” about your past is a waste of time; asking “what-if?” about your future is tremendously useful.
A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.
You don’t have to attend every argument you are invited to.
Whenever there is an argument between two sides, find the third side.
If you ask for someone’s feedback you’ll get a critic. But if instead you ask for advice, you’ll get a partner.
Your opinion on a contentious issue gains power when you can argue the opposite side as well as they can.
If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another, you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself your conclusions will not be predictable.
When someone tells you something is wrong, they’re usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they’re usually wrong.
The stronger your beliefs, the stronger your reasons to question them regularly. Don’t simply believe everything you think you believe.
You can reduce the annoyance of someone’s stupid belief by increasing your understanding of why they believe it.
A multitude of bad ideas is required to produce one good idea.
As long as an idea stays in your head, it is perfect. But perfect things are never real. Immediately put an idea down into words, or in a sketch, or as a cardboard prototype. Now your idea is much closer to reality because it is imperfect.
Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.
If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. Hang out with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.
Your ideal partner is not someone you never disagree with but someone you are glad to disagree with.
You cannot get smart people to work extremely hard just for money.
When crises strike, don’t waste them. No problems, no progress.
Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist, you don’t have to ignore the multitude of problems we create; you just have to imagine how much our ability to solve problems improves.
Go with the option that opens up yet more options.
Occasionally, your first idea is best, but usually it’s the fifth idea. You need to get all the obvious ideas out of the way. Try to surprise yourself.
Don’t compare your inside to someone else’s outside.
When you feel like quitting, just do five more: 5 more minutes, 5 more pages, 5 more steps. Then repeat. Sometimes, you can break through and keep going, but even if you can’t, you ended five ahead. Tell yourself that you will quit tomorrow, but not today.
Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.
If you repeated what you did today 365 more times, will you be where you want to be next year?
Take the stairs.
It is your destiny to work on things that only you can do.
Very few regrets in life are about what you did. Almost all are about what you didn’t do.
Don’t keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.
Pros make as many mistakes as amateurs; they’ve just learned how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.
If you want something to get done ask a busy person to do it.
Promptness is a sign of respect.
When you lend something, pretend that you are gifting. If it is returned, you’ll be surprised and happy.
A major part of travel is to leave stuff behind. The more you leave behind, the further you will advance.
A vacation + a disaster = an adventure
Explore or optimize? Do you optimize what you know will sell or explore with something new? Do you order a restaurant dish you are sure is great (optimize) or do you try something new? Do you keep dating new folks (explore) or try to commit to someone you met? The ideal balance for exploring new things vs. optimizing those already found is ⅓. Spend ⅓ of your time on exploring and ⅔ on optimizing and deepening. As you mature it is harder to devote time to exploring because it seems unproductive but aim for ⅓.
Expand your mind by thinking with your feet on a walk or with your hand in a notebook. Think outside your brain.
You see only 2% of another person and they see only 2% of you. Attune yourself to the hidden 98%.
The biggest lie we tell ourselves is ‘I don’t need to write this down because I will remember it.
Draw to discover what you see. Write to discover what you think.
If you are looking for something in your house and you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.
Recipe for greatness: Become just a teeny bit better than you were last year. Repeat every year.
Tend to the small things. More people are defeated by blisters than by mountains.
To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just redo it, redo it, redo it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.
To move through a place you may not be permitted, act like you belong there.
Ask anyone you admire: Their lucky breaks happened on a detour from their main goal. So embrace detours. Life is not a straight line for anyone.
If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep.
The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.
Commit to doing no work no business no income one day a week. Call it a sabbath (or not). Use that day for resting, recharging, and cultivating the most important things in life. Counterintuitively, this sabbath will prove to be your most productive act all week.
When you keep people waiting, they begin to think of all your flaws.
When speaking to an audience, pause frequently. Pause before you say something in a new way, pause after you have said something you believe is important, and pause as a relief to let listeners absorb details.
You will be judged on how well you treat those who can do nothing for you.
If nobody else does what you do, you won’t need a resume.
The greatest rewards come from working on something that nobody has words for. If you possibly can work where there are no names for what you do.
No is an acceptable answer even without a reason.
Don’t measure your life with someone else’s ruler.
Trust me: There is no ‘them.’
The small person believes they are superior; the superior person knows they are lucky.
Don’t be in haste. When you are in a hurry you are more easily conned or manipulated.
You should demand extraordinary evidence in order to believe extraordinary claims.
Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful to them. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.
Your goal is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.
The end is almost always the beginning of something better.
Pin These Kevin Kelly Quotes for Wisdom You’ll Actually Use Every Day!
