YURUI'S FAVOURITES
YURUI'S FAVOURITES
The top 1% of content I’ve consumed.
My favourite quotes, books, articles, blogs, newsletters, speeches, videos, podcasts, movies, and poems.
If you’ve asked me for a recommendation, I’ve sent you this page. If you think I should read or listen to something, please let me know!
Quick Notes
In terms of what I enjoy consuming, and hence descendingly ordered by volume, I’ve been exposed to:
Quotes/tweets > email newsletters > articles/blogs > speeches/videos > books > podcasts
Also worth noting that quotes are short-form with higher ROI, but sometimes sitting down with books and podcasts for hours helps internalise learnings much better. I like setting limits to prevent cognitive overstimulation.
I read at 800-1000wpm, listen to podcasts at 3-3.5x speed, and type at ~140wpm (on the Dvorak keyboard) - hence I much prefer reading as a media of learning over listening. Both 1000% have their own perks.
Before you dive in: Treat your to-read pile like a river.
Quotes
I’ve come across thousands of quotes throughout the years.
Here are the best ones that have stuck with me:
“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.” - T.S. Eliot
“Many will influence and impact your life. But never let others tell you how to live your life. You have the power to be who you want to be. To do whatever it is you want to do.” - Anon
“I think, therefore I am.” - Rene Descartes
“It is because he is thus free from striving that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.” - Laozi
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will experience a success unimagined in common hours.” - Henry David Thoreau
“Don't fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.” - Bruce Lee
“A life poorly lived only serves to amplify, or even create the horrors of death entirely. The answer to death is not what happens after, during death, or even why we must die. But instead, how we live.” - Anon
“What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains, and what’s not meant for you won’t reach you even if it’s between your lips.” - Umar Ibn Al Khatab
“Regrets won’t change yesterday. Anxiety won’t change tomorrow. Even the darkest nights will end, and the sun will rise again. Find peace in the imperfect present.” - Anon
“A man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.” - Alexis Carrel
“Change has become a constant; managing it has become an expanding discipline. The way we embrace it defines our future.” - Queen Elizabeth II
Find more at Yurui’s Favourite Quotes. I really enjoy coming back to these every now a then.
Books
I’ve almost exclusively read non-fiction for the past couple of years, and I’m trying to broaden my horizons. If you have any good fiction reads, let me know!
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (must-read for anyone curious enough to stumble onto this page)
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Letters from a Stoic by Seneca and The Dao De Jing by Laozi
Zero To One by Peter Thiel
When Breath Becomes Air by Paulo Coelho
Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
The above message is outdated… I find that I tend to enjoy fiction more and get trapped in the worlds of the characters I read about.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Karla and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Dune by Frank Herbert
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
W;t by Margaret Edson
(Non) Fiction:
Virgil’s Aeneid
Homer’s Iliad + Odyssey, Aeschylus’ Orestia, Sophocles’ Oedipus series
Blogs/Newsletters
More To That (I love this site)
Paul Graham (the classic)
Financial Samurai (came across this very recently and absolutely love it)
I always read these guys’ newsletters:
Articles (all these are amazing)
How Will You Measure Your Life? - Clayton Christensen
Why Time Flies - Maximilian Kiener
How People Think - Morgan Housel
The Struggle - Ben Horowitz (wow)
The Inner Scorecard - Shane Parrish
The Last Question - Isaac Asimov (best 5 min fiction read ever)
My death is close at hand. But I do not think of myself as dying. - Paul Woodruff (my fav article on death)
The Finality of Everything - More To That
The Nothingness of Money - More To That
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - Wait But Why (long but great)
How To Be Successful - Sam Altman
The Days Are Long But The Decades Are Short - Sam Altman
What You'll Wish You'd Known - Paul Graham
How To Figure Out What To Do With Your Life - Julian Shapiro
The Tail End - Wait But Why
The Egg - Andy Weir (An epic story with a great moral - treat everyone as if they were all reincarnations of you, all of a common conscience).
Philosophy Has Lost Its Way - More To That
The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu
On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - Haruki Murakami (yes, this is the odd one out but also an amazing read)
Speeches
Steve Jobs’ 2005 Commencement Speech (whenever ur cooked)
Videos
In The Fall by Steve Cutts. 11/10 watch. From the guy that did the happiness rat-race animation
Some Rough Advice for the "Real World" by Vlog Brothers
Andrew Huberman’s Non Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) Protocol -Trust me, you’ll love it.
Feeling Through by Omeleto (must watch)
Instructions for a Happy Life by exurb1a
Happiness by Steve Cutts
Digital Hygiene: How We Might've Fucked Our Attention Spans by exurb1a
What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection by Jia Jiang
Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career by Larry Smith
You (Probably) Don’t Exist by exurb1a
Sleep is Just Death Being Shy by exurb1a
Deepak Chopra’s Finest Moments
Podcasts
The Joe Rogan Experience - David Goggins and Naval episodes were favourites
Huberman Lab podcast
Diary of a CEO - Mo Gawdat, Jordan Peterson episodes excellent
Lex Fridman’s podcast
A View from the Top - Stanford GSB
Movies
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Triangle of Sadness
To Live
Kung Fu Panda 1-4
Blade Runner
It’s Such a Beautiful Day
Interstellar
Forrest Gump
Soul
The Polar Express
Poems
The Aeneid by Virgil
Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy
Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay
So Many Books, So Little Time by Haki R. Madhubuti
If by Rudyard Kipling
Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope