CONTENTS

Introduction

1. The Indisputable Role of Luck

2. ‘A Quitter Never Wins and a Winner Never Quits’

—Napoleon Hill

3. Passion: A Tale of Destructive Obsession

4. ‘Choose a Job You Love, and You Will Never Have to Work a Day in Your Life’

—Confucius

5. Money and Happiness: A Medley of Misleading Quotations

6. ‘<INSERT NOUN> Is a Journey, Not a Destination’

7. Disproving the Unhealthiness of Health

8. ‘The Purpose of Life is a Life of Purpose’

—Robert Byrne

9. Positive Thinking – and All That Crap

10. ‘Life Is Too Short to Wake Up With Regrets’

—Paulo Coelho

11. Dreams Can Come True … and Other Forms of Self-deception

12. ‘If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going, You Will Probably End Up Somewhere Else’

—Laurence J. Peter

13. It’s Not What Happens to You … or Is It?

14. ‘Many Hands Make Light Work’

—John Heywood

15. The Impossibility of Achieving the Impossible

16. ‘That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger’

—Friedrich Nietzsche

17. The Dirty Business of Busyness

18. ‘It’s Better to Be a Lion for a Day than a Sheep All Your Life’

—Elizabeth Kenny