- Highlights from the books I read -
"At break of day, when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind: 'I am getting up for a man's work. Do I still then resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose for which I was brought into the world? Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?' 'But this is more pleasant.' Were you then born for pleasure - all for feeling, not for action?"
All Notes
"For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?"
"Frantically I rolled the windows shut and, swinging quickly to the left, grazed the animal, then scuttled on while Charley raved and ranted beside me, describing in detail what he would do to that bear if he could get at him."
"The power of an attitude is amazing."
All Notes
"The lesson is clear: estimates of causes of death are warped by media coverage. The coverage is itself biased toward novelty and poignancy. The media do not just shape what the public is interested in, but also are shaped by it."
"Lawmakers and regulators may be overly responsive to the irrational concerns of citizens, both because of political sensitivity and because they are prone to the same cognitive biases as other citizens."
All Notes
"The history of life thus consists of "long periods of boredom interrupted occasionally by panic.""
"If Wake and Vredenburg were correct, then those of us alive today not only are witnessing one of the rarest events in life's history, we are also causing it."
"Everything (and everyone) alive today is descended from an organism that somehow survived the impact."
All Notes
"Yesterday there was one dogma. Now there is another."
"'When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won. Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?'"
"Their idiological children in identity politics and intersectionality seem content to inhabit an ideological space littered with contradiction, absurdity and hypocrisy."
All Notes
"When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an instructed adult, they then complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure He would have made 'religion' simple, because simplicity is so beautiful, etc."
So let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies - these over-simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either.
All Notes
"In the process, he made some mistakes. But even the mistakes, which came from innovating and experimenting, heralded his genius."
"There was another reason, one even more fundamental, that Leonardo did not complete the painting: he preferred the conception to the execution."
"His notebooks are filled with sketches both innovative and fanciful. As usual, his creativity came from his combinatory imagination."
"Our bodies operate most efficiently in a state of balance, pivoting between action and relaxation, daydreaming and reasoned thought. This balance is influenced by the nasal cycle, and may even be controlled by it."
"He told me that mouthbreathing contributed to periodontal disease and bad breath, and was the number one cause of cavitites, even more damaging than sugar consumption, bad diet, or poor hygiene."
"The numbers have no way of speaking for themselves. We speak for them. We imbue them with meaning. Like Caesar, we may construe them in self-serving ways that are detached from their objective reality."
"We face danger whenever information growth outpaces our understanding of how to process it."
"We need to stop, and admit it: we have a prediction problem. We love to predict things - and we aren't very good at it."
"For there isn't any 'right' way to do such personal work. There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you."
"Good writers of prose must be part poet, always listening to what they write."
"When you find yourself at such an impasse, look at the troublesome element and ask, 'Do I need it at all?'"
"Understand: Like everyone, you think you are reational, but you are not. Rationality is not a power you are born with but one you acquire through training and practice."
"They immediately turn the conversation back to themselves, with some story or anecdote to distract from the insecurity behind it."
"You will almost inevitably encounter this type in your life, because through their ambition they tend to become bosses and CEOs, political figures, cult leaders."
"Thanks to error, we can revise your understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world."
"Of all the strife in the world - strife of every imaginable variety, from conflict over crumb cake to conflict in the Middle East - a staggering amount of it arises from the clash of mutually incompatible, entirely unshakable feelings of rightness."
"Likewise, it is surprisingly difficult to get angry unless you are either convinced that you are correct, or humiliated and defensive about being wrong."