James Altucher Quotes

I always look at a group of people who want to attempt an enterprise greater than their means. They begin on this enterprise and they fail.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

And he that strives to touch the stars, Oft stumbles at a straw.

As soon as you think you can do whatever you want and you have whatever great professional in the world waiting to work with you, then you are sunk.

The minute I get a big head and start acting like the big man on campus, it's all downhill from there.

I had dreams, but I didn't have the sense that they would necessarily work out. They seemed very far-fetched.

Even I admit I may have peaked too soon.

When you have success, people think you know what you're doing, and you start to agree with them, you think you can conquer the world. But you go from grandiosity to panic.

My biggest problem is overconfidence.

I got ideas above my station, and I made mistakes.

I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

Arrogance is a weed which grows upon a dunghill; it is from the rankness of the soil that she has her height and spreadings: witness, clowns, fools, and fellows, who from nothing, are lifted up some few steps on fortune's ladder: where, seeing the glorious representment of honour above them, they are so eager to embrace it, that they strive to leap thither at once, and by over-reaching themselves in the way, they fail of the end, and fall.

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other side

Success tempts many to their ruin.

Actors think they're far more important than they are, and that can only lead to hurt. People with colossal self-importance have very far to fall.

Nothing fails like success.

I knew I wanted to play 'Dr Cox' really bad, which is always a huge mistake because as soon as you want something really bad, maybe you rip up a little bit.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that's when something snaps up and bites you.

The silent killer of all great men and women of achievement - particularly men, I don't know why, maybe it's the testosterone - I think it's narcissism. Even more than hubris. And for women, too. Narcissism is the killer.

It is by attempting to reach the top in a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world.

If you want this job too much you may not be any good at it.

What enables us to achieve our greatness contains the seeds of our destruction.

When I'm considering an idea, and there is an element of hubris involved, I generally feel comfortable that it's going to be a good story. Pride goeth before a fall. It's an element of a lot of big stories.

I wanted to be famous. It's embarrassing to admit, but I came out to L.A. thinking it would happen in no time. I thought, 'Once they see me, they'll be so glad I came.' I always had a ridiculous amount of self-confidence about what was going to happen to me.

I was good at speech and debate and academics. I should've stayed in my lane, but I kept trying out for the basketball team. I thought I would make the N.B.A.