Quotes
Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
DON'T QUIT
Marcus Aurelius "I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.
Soms doen mensen heel intellectueel en praten over mozart terwijl ze nog nooit één van zijn schilderijen hebben gezien
The difference between knowing the rules of the game of chess and being able to play. So it is that we may know the rules, but we cannot play very well.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. - Epictetus
Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. - ALAN LAKEIN
I think I think too much.
Jesus Cchrist was pretty cross
Als Europa echt een ‘extreemrechts-probleem’ had, dan zouden moskeeën beveiligd moeten worden. Niet kerstmarkten.
After receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918, Max Planck went on tour across Germany. Wherever he was invited, he delivered the same lecture on new quantum mechanics. Over time, his chauffeur grew to know it by heart: 'It has to be boring giving the same speech each time, Professor Planck. How about I do it for you in Munich? You can sit in the front row and wear my chauffeur's cap. That'd give us both a bit of variety.' Planck liked the idea, so that evening the driver held a long lecture on quantum mechanics in front of a distinguished audience. Later, a physics professor stood up with a question. The driver recoiled: 'Never would I have thought that someone from such an advanced city as Munich would ask such a simple question! My chauffeur will answer it.'
It isn't 10,000 hours that creates outliers, it's 10,000 iterations.
I don't trust words, I trust actions.
THE TASK IS NOT TO SEE WHAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE, BUT TO THINK WHAT HAS NEVER BEEN THOUGHT BEFORE ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE EVERYDAY. - ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER
COMMON SENSE IS A FLOWER THAT DOESN'T GROW IN EVERYONE'S GARDEN
A system that takes more time to maintain than it saves you, isn't a tool. it's a hobby
Reciprocal information.
Feedback tolerance predicts trajectory better than talent.
Talking about problems is far more comfortable than solving them. DON'T LET ANYONE RUIN YOUR DAY. YOU'RE AN ADULT. DO IT YOURSELF.
NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF CALM DOWN HAS ANYONE CALMED DOWN BY BEING TOLD TO CALM DOWN
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. -Ayn Rand
Socialist: A person that wants everything you have, except your job.
Second-guessing is for losers
Ceteris paribus all other things being held constant.
Economist Milton Friedman on the work required to hold an opinion: “You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do."
Author Jim Murphy on deceiving ourselves: “One of the biggest mistakes we make in our stories is confusing our circumstances with our thoughts about those circumstances.”
A good reminder from Charlie Munger: "Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts … In the end, most people get what they deserve." Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems
It’s a mistake to worry about ‘sunk cost.
Finding a needle in a haystack was not as hard as it sounded, if you had a thread tied to the needle
Outside the Church there is no salvation.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. —Voltaire
The absence of a feature is a feature.
You are by definition professionals. Don’t hide behind research. Use your knowledge to come up with a plan.
There was no need to be so rude. He was only trying to help you. He spoke to me as if I were a child.
‘Around 350 BC, Aristotle defined human beings as “zoon logon echon” – “the rational animal” or, more accurately, “the animal that has language”.
The growth in available information has been exceeded only by the expansion of noise).
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measure.
Self-pity feels like medicine and works like poison.
It's rare that I meet an exceptional person who is not deeply involved in the details.
In fact, I can't think of one. But I'm sure they exist.
The person who approaches a problem like an opportunity has an advantage that the person who sees an obstacle will never understand. Popular opinion warns that bad information is worse than no information at all.
I start with the platitude that one cannot judge a performance in any given field (war, politics, medicine, investments) by the results, but by the costs of the alternative (i.e., if history played out in a different way)
In the words of Mark Twain, such students have let their schooling interfere with their education.
To draw its picture is like a blind man sensing a snowflake. One touch and it’s gone
Cleverness was the alternative to submission or rebellion: through cleverness one could manipulate any situation to one’s advantage
As he was to put it later, it is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong
If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow
Begin to believe that the sun really does shine out of their arse.
The moralizing do-gooder, the self-righteous evangelist busily saving others whilst incapable of saving himself.
A useful way of polarizing the debate for those with no interest in resolving it
He was losing it. He had stopped believing and started thinking
I call the flip side to the wisdom of crowds the lunacy of lemmings.
Stupid means: someone who harms others without procuring any gain for himself or herself
What gets measured gets managed
There are two types of talent: the natural talent you're born with and the chosen talent you earn with your mindset, choices, and work. Natural talent is overrated. Chosen talent is underrated.
Why are otherwise smart people trying to do too many things? The answer might surprise you. Saying no to something is hard because you immediately see what you might lose: the money, the connection, the possibility that something might come of it. So we say yes … because the cost is hidden. Every yes quietly steals time from the most important thing you're already working on.
Einstein’s remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen
Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.
Things will continue roughly as they have been. When pressed, a further clause: “until something changes is added
It is like an elephant treading on an anthill. The elephant will kill thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps millions of ants, but in the end the [ants’] numerical superiority will win out, and they will climb up him and consume him to the bone
“The purpose of life is not to be happy at all. It is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you lived."
Bête noire (pronounced bet nwahr) is a French term that literally translates to "black beast". In English, it refers to a person, thing, or idea that someone dislikes intensely, dreads, or finds to be the bane of their existence.
pièces de conviction
If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near. So much advantage in life comes from being willing to look like an idiot in the short term.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a famous phrase originating from a 1624 meditation by English poet John Donne. It signifies that all of humanity is interconnected, meaning any person's death diminishes us all. The concept has since inspired a classic 1940 war novel by Ernest Hemingway and a 1984 heavy metal song by Metallica.
The phrase comes from a sermon by English poet and cleric John Donne, which features the famous lines: "No man is an island, entire of itself… any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Historically, church bells were tolled to announce someone's death. We learn from history that we do not learn from history
He got through all his business with astonishing expedition. He had an amazing capacity to switch from one thing to another; and despite all he did he seemed unhurried, with plenty of time for friendship
It is enough for the others to tell lies. But between us, it must be only the truth. One lie and the clear water will become cloudy.
There are secret and there are mysteries, and this is a mystery
There is nothing wrong and undignified with emotions—we are cut to have them. What is wrong is not following the heroic or, at least, the dignified path
A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point
The opportunity cost of missing a “new new thing” like the airplane and the automobile is minuscule compared to the toxicity of all the garbage one has to go through to get to these jewels (assuming these have brought some improvement to our lives, which I frequently doubt).
You know, Murray, there is no one in the world who is as smart as you think you are.
FASCISM, NAZISM, COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM ARE ONLY SUPERFICIAL VARIATIONS OF THE SAME MONSTROUS THEME: COLLECTIVISM- AYN RAND
When it comes to XXX, you generally don’t want to be a member of any club that will have you
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
I DON'T KNOW THE WAY, BUT I'LL BE THERE SOON
IT COULD BE THAT THE PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE IS ONLY TO SERVE AS A WARNING TO OTHERS.
Information is only valuable if you truly understand it.
May life treat you the way you treat animals.
MY PEOPLE SKILLS ARE JUST FINE IT'S MY TOLERANCE TO IDIOTS THAT NEEDS WORK.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practise to deceive!" It comes from Sir Walter Scott's 1808 epic poem, Marmion. The idiom means that when you lie or act dishonestly, you create a domino effect of complex problems that eventually spiral out of control
Shit or get off pot
People want the outcome, not the effort that produces it.
I'M CURRENTLY UNSUPERVISED I know, it scares me too but the possibilities are endless
Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway. - Robert Downey Jr.
More is the pity: means that something is regrettable, disappointing, or sad. Essentially, it is an older, more formal way of saying: It's a pity, What a shame, That is too bad. I regret that.
You can get the answer without effort, but you can't get the understanding.
Nobody wants a doctor who never gives them bad news, but that's effectively what we do in life when we optimize for people liking us. It's better to have the sting of honesty than the blindness of flattery.
Illusion of confidence; describes the psychological tendency for people to mistake expressive, vocal certainty for actual competence or knowledge. We frequently trust or promote individuals who speak confidently over those who are truly knowledgeable but more reserved, leading to major personal, professional, and societal errors
I'm at chimp-with-abacus stage
Pacta sunt servanda: overeenkomsten moeten worden nagekomen - Cicero Rebus sic stantibus: zolang de omstandigheden hetzelfde blijven - Seneca
Tegenover dit adagium staat een ander klassiek beginsel: rebus sic stantibus (zolang de omstandigheden hetzelfde blijven)
If I wasn't wrong I would be right
Like many servants he assumed a manner appropriate to the rank of his employer
The vital political defense mechanism of not remembering those things which it is more convenient to forget
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist
You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh - Oscar Wild
The passion for gambling comes from a man's belief that he has no control over his life, that he is controlled by fate, and, therefore, he wants to reassure himself that fate or luck is on his side.
An aspiration and not a goal
It's easy to indulge luxury beliefs, but they don't hold up in hard times
There is no there there - Gertrude Stein
May life treat you the way you treat animals.
IF YOU'RE THINKING WHAT IM THINKING THEN YOU PROBABLY NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP
The dream of yesterday is the reality of tomorrow
I never consciously keep things from you
Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a homosexual
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world Jeder hält die Grenzen seines Gesichtsfeldes für die Grenzen der Welt
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should
When someone's habits don't match their ambitions, trust the habits.
The corollary: Do your habits match your ambitions?
Most success comes from 50 small things moving in the same direction, not one big thing.
Most beliefs are soft until challenged. When you tell someone they're wrong, the belief hardens.
Instead of trying to convince someone they're wrong, assume they know something you don't and figure out what it is.
I've found that saying, "Seems like you have a reason for saying that …" helps them explain instead of defend. Half the time, they'll find gaps in their own reasoning before you have time to point them out. The other half, you'll learn something and change your own mind.
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age - Aldous Huxley
If you aim for perfection and miss, you're still pretty good, but if you aim for mediocre and miss?
The entrepreneur keeps himself operating on the threshold of excellence because he fears mediocrity. The entrepreneur has learned to dig for facts. The first explanation given does not include all the facts. Once the facts are found, the necessary action is clear. The entrepreneur has a sixth sense of what will work and what will not work – by adjusting experience and knowledge. The entrepreneur tenaciously grasps every opportunity to meet goals using the art of human relations (some say it is a science), the laws of the marketplace, and excellent management of manpower, money, and machines or resources. The entrepreneur knows that he must delegate responsibility, but he never sacrifices his knowledge of the details. The main difference between the entrepreneur and the manager is attitude! Fortune favors the bold
Stop chasing happiness, start being stronger
Cat: The furry little sociopath who rules your house and manages to look adorable while doing so.
IF YOU KNOW THE ENEMY AND KNOW YOURSELF, YOU NEED NOT FEAR THE RESULT OF A HUNDRED BATTLES. SUN TZU
POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY
PLAN ALL THE WAY TO THE END
I sought good judgment mostly by collecting instances of bad judgment, then pondering ways to avoid such outcomes.
Americans always use six words when two will do
Ars excerpendi, the art of excerpting,
Non colligo, sed seligo (‘I don’t collect, I select’). Latin
Wunderkammers, chambers of curiosities,
Epigram moral motto
Digging one’s way to Hell.
Skill is whatever happens repeatedly. Everything else is a story.
One way to beat fear is with steps so small they don't scare you.
Sometimes you have to start a fight to discover how to win it
The terminator is out there, it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop… EVER, until you are dead!
Even when I had nothing to do, did I do nothing
I'm only the stage manager at this production, not one of the performers
She is as honest as the day is long
Beauty should cost less than it looks
Fake it until you make it
No gray areas
Unde non potest esse voluntas magna, difficultate magna. This roughly translates to: "Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great." Niccolo Machiavelli
Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
If you don’t guard your time, everyone will waste it for you.
Wisdom doesn't come with age, fools can live a long time.
Nitpickers are more focused on being right than being useful.
The greater the success, the less it was due to one thing.
Increasingly, data can only truly deliver via negativa–style knowledge—it can be effectively used to debunk, not confirm.
The smarter you get, the more you refrain from having an opinion about everything.
Smart people don't complain. They figure out how to use any circumstances to their advantage.
The writer learns more than the reader.
Evanescent: soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing.
Vorsorgeprinzip: Better Safe than Sorry
- The Precautionary Principle
- Precautionary Approach
- Precautionary Action
- First do no harm
- Guilty until proven innocent
When handling risks, it is important to be aware of what we don’t or can’t know for sure.
The burden of proof is on proving lack of harm, not on proving harm.
The interconnections and dependencies within complex systems make it almost impossible to predict outcomes—and seeing as they often require a reasonably precise set of conditions to function, our interventions can wreak havoc. Even the smallest change within a complex system, risk dramatic unintended consequences.
An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is the name of a logical fallacy in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument.
By extraordinary, we usually mean out of the ordinary. But what if – following Charles Perrow's work on "normal accidents" – we take extraordinary to mean super-ordinary? How does the nuclear cleanup at Fukushima shed light on the ordinary functioning of the nuclear industry, in Japan and elsewhere?
An epiphenomenon (plural: epiphenomena) is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon. The word has two senses: one that connotes known causation and one that connotes absence of causation or reservation of judgment about it.[
You use the example of a melting ice cube to illustrate the problem with statistical models. If you see an ice cube, it’s easy to predict the shape of the puddle that will result when it melts. But if you see a puddle, it’s impossible to determine the shape of the ice that created it. Similarly, a statistical model will give precise predictions of possible outcomes; so if you have a model, you can put confidence intervals around events. However, observing events does not help you build a model. There are an infinite number of models that could plausibly underlie historical events. Unless you have strong theoretical reasons for knowing the type of model, and there are a reasonably small number of parameters relative to the amount of data, modelling is as hopeless as trying to guess the shape of an ice cube from observing a puddle.
When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting.[2] The "mise-en-scène", along with the cinematography and editing of a film, influence the verisimilitude or believability of a film in the eyes of its viewers.[
Exalt: To raise in rank, character, or status; elevate: exalted the shepherd to the rank of grand vizier. To glorify, praise, or honor. To increase the effect or intensity of; heighten: works of art that exalt the imagination. To fill with sublime emotion; elate.
Weakness of will Richard Holton (1999), argues that weakness of the will involves revising one's resolutions too easily. Under this view, it is possible to act against one's better judgment (that is, be akratic), but without being weak-willed. Suppose, for example, Sarah judges that taking revenge upon a murderer is not the best course of action, but makes the resolution to take revenge anyway and sticks to that resolution. According to Holton, Sarah behaves akratically but does not show weakness of will.
In international relations, an aide-mémoire is a proposed agreement or negotiating text circulated informally among delegations for discussion without committing the originating delegation's country to the contents. It has no identified source, title, or attribution and no standing in the relationship involved. Such a text is also referred to as a non-paper in many international organizations, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization and sometimes within the European Union The term also has a more general meaning, as an English noun with French influence, meaning "a memory-aid; a reminder or memorandum, especially a book or document serving this purpose."
Incerto incerta, incerti, incerte) uncertainty, risk, uncertain, doubtful, dubious, undecided hesitant, insecure, unsteady, shaky indefinite, uncertain Synonyms dubbio, indeciso, dubbioso, esitante, insicuro, malfermo, indefinito, incertezza. rischio Antonyms certo
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT I LIKE
The machine that has language
Gilgamesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh
Extropy is an immaterial force that is very much like information. Since extropy is defined as negative entropy — the reversal of disorder — it is, by definition, an increase in order. The difference between four bottles of amino acids on a laboratory self and the four amino acids arrayed in your chromosomes lies in the additional structure, or ordering, those atoms get from participating in the spirals of your replicating DNA. Same atoms, more order.
In horse racing terminology, a trifecta is a parimutuel bet in which the bettor must predict which horses will finish first, second, and third in exact order. The word comes from the related betting term, "perfecta". A trifecta is known as a tiercé inFrance and Hong Kong and as a tris in Italy. It is also used in sports to describe scoring three points at one time (e.g. hat-trick), or succeeding at anything three times in three consecutive attempts, such as in cricket.
What disturbs and alarms man, said Epictetus, are not the things, but his opinions and fancies about the things
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.-Bukowski
A useful way of polarizing the debate for those with no interest in resolving it.
The moralizing do-gooder, the self-righteous evangelist busily saving others whilst incapable of saving himself.
Everything will be ok in the end. if it's not ok it's not the end.
There are two kinds of secrets: those we keep from others and those we hide from ouselves.
Lao Tzu If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns): in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns) - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The road to hell is paved with rationalization
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? (Blaise Pascal)
A few years ago, Mark Lepper and David Greene, two social psychologists, spent time observing children during free play in the classroom and noted that some took an interest in drawing. These kids sought the chance to draw and spontaneously asked for crayons and paper. The experimenters then took these youngsters and placed them in two different conditions. One group of children were each shown a glossy certificate, adorned with their name, and asked if they would like to receive it in return for drawing. A second group were not promised anything at all, but continued to draw anyway. Two weeks later, the psychologists returned to observe the children from these groups during free play. The no-reward group continued to seek out pens and paper, just as before. Those who had received a glossy certificate, on the other hand, showed significantly less interest. As the author Daniel Pink put it: "Their motivation seemed to have sprung a leak." What was going on? Decades of studies on adults have revealed the same results: offering extrinsic rewards runs the risk of making an activity "transactional". When drawing was positioned as a means to an end (getting a certificate), it corroded the children's desire to draw for its own sake. It crowded out the deeper reasons why youngsters wish to draw and create. As one psychologist put it: "People use rewards expecting to increase another person's motivation, but in so doing, they often incur the unintentional and hidden cost of undermining intrinsic motivation."
Don't talk unless you can improve the silence. JORGE LUIS BORGES
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude. - Karl Popper
I asked the librarian for a book about Pavlov's dog and Schroedinger's cat. She said it rang a bell but she wasn't sure if it was there or not.
WEALTH MUST BE CREATED NOT DISTRIBUTED
What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create. -BUDDHA
Men say that women should come with instructions…What's the point of that? Have you ever seen a man actually read the instructions??
Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie. Geoff Graham
If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn't learn to walk without going to school.
GIVING UP ON YOUR GOAL BECAUSE OF ONE SETBACK IS LIKE SLASHING YOUR OTHER THREE TIRES BECAUSE YOU GOT A FLAT.
I think a lot of folks assume they are hated for their sexuality/race/gender when in reality they are just unlikable cunts.
Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow Vincent van Gogh
Always remember that the toes you step on today could be attached to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. MALCOLM X
The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan. von Clausewitz
Being nice counts the most when you are nice to people ignored by others, deprived of attention or devoid of friends. The rest is largely theatre- NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
Black is white: Once upon a time an impoverished merchant fell into debt. The ugly old money-lender fancied the merchant's beautiful daughter and offered to cancel the debt if he could have her instead. That proposal didn't go down too well so he cunningly suggested they let providence decide. It so happened they were all standing on a path strewn with black and white pebbles. The moneylender suggested they put a black and a white pebble in a bag, and that the daughter then took one out without looking. If it was black she would become his, if white she could stay with her father. In either case the debts would be cancelled but if they didn't play along with the idea then he'd throw dad into prison. Reluctantly they agreed. The money-lender bent down, selected two pebbles, and popped them in the bag. However, the girl noticed he cheated by picking up two blacks. He told her to close her eyes, put her hand in the bag, and pick one out. She did, but pretending to fumble dropped it on the path. 'Oops', she exclaimed, 'never mind, if you look in the bag you can tell which one I took by the colour of the one that's left.'
Toen ik een kleuter was ging ik vaak bij mooi weer naar het strand. Met mijn moeder en mijn zusje. Ik speelde in de zee, die toen niet zo helder was als nu. Je zag je voeten nauwelijks. Ooit was er iemand gestoken door een kwal. Het zag er eng uit, een grote rode plek en gejammer om de jeuk en prik. Ik durfde de zee niet meer in. Mijn moeder wees toen naar een man die heel ver in zee heen en weer zwom. "Je hoeft niet meer bang te zijn voor kwallen, zei ze, ¨want die meneer houdt ze allemaal tegen". En als kleuter geloof je dat natuurlijk.
If you don't try to change the future, others will.
The world belongs to those who dare.
It's like déjà vu, all over again. ~Yogi Berra
50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat
YOU CAN'T FIGHT IN HERE THIS IS THE WAR ROOM
Avoiding offense means that we don't accept each other as equals."
TO BREAK THE RULES, YOU MUST FIRST MASTER THEM.
When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it."
Don't always believe what you think!
This is my Blackberry. There are many like it but this one is mine,” says one devoted user's tag line on CrackBerry.com “My Blackberry is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my Blackberry is useless. Without my Blackberry I am useless.
LAIEN halten Computer für unfehlbar ANFÄNGER halten Computer für unfehlbar und suchen den Fehler beim Computer PROFIS halten den Computern für fast unfehlbar und suchen den Fehler bei sich
"It is far, far easier to make a correct program fast than it is to make a fast program orrect. - Herb Sutter
THE JAPANESE SAY YOU HAVE 3 FACES:The first face; you show to the world. The second face; you show to your close friends and your family. The third face; you never show anyone; the truest reflection of who you are.
STOP WAITING FOR THINGS TO HAPPEN GO OUT AND MAKE THEM HAPPEN
DON'T BE AFRAID TO FAIL. BE AFRAID NOT TO TRY.
Always wrong but never in doubt
Duct tape can t fix stupid but it can muffle the sound
I can explain it to you but I can t understand it for you
Allergic to stupid people
Experience teaches us: those who repeatedly slam their heads against the same wall may not qualify as evolution’s preferred leadership model. Headaches should be understood as a warning sign — not as motivation for the next assault.
Even when I had nothing to do did I do nothing
If you have to do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly
Spontaneous wit, shared gossip and sharp observations
A word actually exists to describe the span of time between midnight and 6 a.m., when ordinary European mortals are safely tucked up in bed. La madrugada
The moralizing do-gooder, the self-righteous evangelist busily saving others whilst incapable of saving himself.
A useful way of polarizing the debate for those with no interest in resolving it.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success
The childhood game of Rock, Paper, Scissors is a simple example of a nontransitive rule. Rock beats (breaks) Scissors, Scissors beats (cuts) Paper, and Paper beats (covers) Rock
In the words of H. P. Lovecraft, ‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown
Daniel Kahneman popularized the idea of two systems of thinking – one is rapid and intuitive, and the other more considered and analytic. When it comes to dealing with uncertainty, he argues that the first, fast system tends towards over-confidence, neglects important background information, ignores the quality and the quantity of evidence, is unduly influenced by how the issue is posed, takes too much notice of rare but dramatic events, and suppresses doubt. These are not characteristics that should be encouraged.
This is sometimes termed aleatory uncertainty, about the future we cannot know. But now the object is the current state of the coin, and the uncertainty is due to your lack of knowledge; this is called epistemic uncertainty, about what we currently do not know.
Our responses can be broken down into those that are cognitive (how we think), emotional (how we feel), and behavioural (what we do).
The name of the game is not to always be right, but to be right often enough.
Humans are most predictable in times of high stress—they act instinctively and panic.
Management is not easy. It's watching someone do job worse than you. That's why it sucks.
What if everybody else is under thinking
Of course I talk to myself, sometimes I need expert advice
Non sine periculo: Not without danger
We need nailers not hangers
Arschbacken zusammen, Eier eingeklemmt
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. FRANKLIN ROOSEvelT
"Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters." CATO THE ELDER
SOMETIMES THOSE WHO DON'T SOCIALIZE MUCH AREN'T ANTI SOCIAL. THEY JUST HAVE NO TOLERANCE FOR DRAMA, STUPIDITY, AND FAKE PEOPLE. Minifa/Mavot
If a man knows more than others he becomes lonely Carl Jung
The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people. NAPOLEON
Broadsword calling Danny Boy
Follow the data ipv follow emotions
The opposite of every great idea is another great idea (bohr)
If Rome is falling, and the Dark Ages are coming, shouldn’t I just give up and bet on the Vandals?
George Bernard Shaw once said “a reasonable man adjusts himself to the world. An unreasonable man expects the world to adjust itself to him. Therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable people.”
Rarely right but never in doubt
Truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged.
Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it's the other way around," he said. "People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans."
Never argue with an idiot. The best outcome you can hope for is that you won an argument with an idiot.
Some people are like Slinkies. Not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs. Anonymous
Truth exists. Only lies are invented. Georges Braque
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. Marie Curie
We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity. Marie Curie
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
The mob has no ruler more potent than superstition
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away
"Faith" is a fine invention
A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone. - Denis Diderot
Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' This stranger is a theologian. Denis Diderot
Skepticism is the first step toward truth Denis Diderot
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. Albert Einstein
I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in Nature. Albert Einstein
The religions we call false were once true. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes James Feibleman
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. Anatole France
So you're offended. So fucking what? Stephen Fry (talking about religious objections to free speech)
In the name of noble purposes men have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty against one another. J. William Fullbright
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei
I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures but with experiments and demonstrations. Galileo Galilei
No theory is too false, no fable so absurd, no superstition too degrading for acceptance when it has become imbedded in common belief. Men will submit themselves to torture and to death, mothers will immolate their children, all at the bidding of beliefs they thus accept. Henry George (1839 - 1897)
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Doubt grows with knowledge. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. Stephen Jay Gould
In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides. Heinrich Heine
Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance Hippocrates
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence Christopher Hitchens
That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be. P. C. Hodgell
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not Eric Hoffer
You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists. Abbie Hoffman
The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract. Oliver Wendell Holmes
For nothing burns with such amazing speed, As the dry sticks of a religious creed Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr
Writing science fiction for a penny a word is no way to make a living. If you really want to make a million, the quickest way is to start your own religion. L. Ron Hubbard
If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. David Hume
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. David Hume
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish. David Hume
The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of "Spiritualism" is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a "medium" hired at a guinea a séance. Aldous Huxley
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religions. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough. Aldous Huxley
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing. Thomas Henry Huxley
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Aldous Huxley
The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. Thomas Henry Huxley
A man should never put on his best trousers when he goes out to battle for freedom and truth. Henrik Ibsen
No man with any sense of humour ever founded a religion. Robert Ingersoll
Our ignorance is God; what we know is science. Robert Ingersoll
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. Thomas Jefferson
There is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people. Thomas Jefferson
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible positions. Thomas Jefferson
In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot. Thomas Jefferson
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. Thomas Jefferson
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. John Maynard Keynes
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? John Maynard Keynes
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. John Maynard Keynes
Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking. John Maynard Keynes
Men talk of heaven, - there is no heaven but here; Men talk of hell, - there is no hell but here; Men of hereafters talk, and future lives, - O love, there is no other life - but here. Omar Khayyám
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Martin Luther King Jr
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. Martin Luther King Jr
Nobody remembers the words of our enemies, but we do remember the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King Jr
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity Martin Luther King Jr
The time is always right to do what is right Martin Luther King Jr
Peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold Martin Luther King Jr (Nobel Acceptance Speech, 1963)
Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious…It is corrupt, sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is based on lies and deceit Justice Latey
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see John Lennon
The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. John Locke
Every sect as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it is a matter of faith, and beyond reason. John Locke
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young. Konrad Lorenz
Thinkers aspired to know, or dared to doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and to believe Lord Macaulay
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. Bob Marley
I count religion as but a childish toy, and hold that there is no sin but ignorance. Christopher Marlowe
Give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything. Peter Marshall
Religion is the sigh of the suppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx
But what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away McDonald/Loggins
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. H. L. Mencken
The curse of man, and cause of nearly all of his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible. H. L. Mencken
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. H. L. Mencken
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing H. L. Mencken
The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. H. L. Mencken
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant. H. L. Mencken
The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief - call it what you will - than any book ever written: It has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle, and golf course. A. A. Milne
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof Ashley Montague
The compass that today guides this timeless endeavor is scientific inquiry. It is science that gazes outward, providing the grand questions that challenge us to journey farther and farther from home. But it is also science that peers inward, exploring previously inaccessible areas of the Earth, and asking the practical questions that help us to make Earth safer, protect our citizens, and expand our economy. NASA Roadmap "Exploring our Planet for the Benefit of Society", 2005
First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me. Martin Niemoeller
Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains … But it can put mountains where there are none Friedrich Nietzsche
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point Friedrich Nietzsche
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies Friedrich Nietzsche
In heaven all the interesting people are missing Friedrich Nietzsche
Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology Friedrich Nietzsche
The two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity. Friedrich Nietzsche
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad Friedrich Nietzsche
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell
As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book. Thomas Paine
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. Thomas Paine
Science is the only way of knowing - everything else is superstition. Robert Park
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? St Paul - 1 Corinthians 14:8,9
I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious St Paul - Acts 17:22
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. St Paul - Hebrews 11:1
Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise. Ivan Pavlov
Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.' - infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people. Wendell Phillips
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science Henri Poincare
We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell. Karl Popper
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. Sir Karl Popper
When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. James Whitcomb Riley
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. Stephen Roberts
Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion. Will Rogers
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. Bertrand Russell
A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and giving to them only that degree of credibility which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure the world from most of the ills from which it is suffering. Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. Bertrand Russell
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. Bertrand Russell
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Bertrand Russell
It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true. Bertrand Russell
One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did Bertrand Russell
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality. Bertrand Russell
A scientist who is also a human being cannot rest while knowledge which might reduce suffering rests on the shelf Albert Sabin
In the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy Carl Sagan
I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true Carl Sagan
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring Carl Sagan
Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience George Santayana
My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. George Santayana
Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't. Pete Seeger
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. Seneca
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw
No man ever believes that the Bible means what IT says; he is always convinced that it says what HE means George Bernard Shaw
It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things Percy Bysshe Shelley
Design must be proved before a designer can be inferred. Percy Bysshe Shelley I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief Gerry Spence
Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for proving and preserving their authority would vanish also. Benedict da Spinoza
The prayers of the millions. How they must fight and destroy each other on the way to the throne of God. John Steinbeck
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Jonathon Swift
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. James Thurber
It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers. James Thurber
I have always observed that when people are interrupted in the performance of some egregious stupidity their feelings are hurt. Anthony Trollope
Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four. Ivan Turgenev
It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand Mark Twain
True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant. Miguel de Unamuno
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'Lord, make my enemies ridiculous!' And God granted it. Voltaire
The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach, and young children are made to learn by heart. Voltaire
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing in a biography of Voltaire
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too Voltaire
Prejudice is opinion without judgment Voltaire
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd Voltaire
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities Voltaire
Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do Voltaire
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. Steven Weinberg
If you haven't paid for the product you are the product
Albert Einstein once said: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler
We don't see things are they are, we see things as we are.
Credit goes to the man who convinces the world
Sycophancy is obsequious (insincere) flattery.
According to greek mythology, humans were originally created with 4 arms, 4 legs, & a head with 2 faces. Fearing 1 earing their power, zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.
Work for free or for full price. Never for cheap.
THE 3 CRITICAL THINGS
- DESIRE/INTEREST
- ABILITY TO LEARN
- ENLIST SUPPORT
THE 12 THINGS 4. EXPOSURE provides the possibilities. 5. INTEREST produces the questions. 6. DESIRE makes the answer meaningful. 7. INTEGRATION ties one meaningful answer to another. 8. FOCUS, COMPREHENSION, MNEMONICS make answers usable. 9. ACTION changes behavior. 10. FLEXIBILITY allows adjustment. 11. SUPPORT provides input. 12. COUNTER-MEASURES increase benefits and decrease errors. 13. MEASUREMENT puts progress in context. 14. 1PERSISTENCE assures growth. 15. CREATIVITY allows expression and contribution.
The motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years, it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks. -Thomas Edison
DONT TAKE LIFE SO SERIOUSLY, IT ISN'T PERMANENT
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -Albert Einstein
TRY BEING INFORMED INSTEAD OF JUST OPINIONATED
But this is raw unstructured data and receiving it is akin to looking down the mouth of a hose pipe as someone else turns the tap.
I am never serious but always sincere
Searching For Nails: A Hammer's Story
It essentially turns productive workers into part-time accountants. Lots of hours that used to go to producing beans get spent on counting them instead. This significantly increases costs and cripples companies for normal commercial competition.
It's not because I can't do anything else but it's because I can't do anything else.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? – George Carlin
I'm a high functioning sociopath
You gotta be first or right. If you're both then that's lucky
When Hope Is a Strategy
It's patience, persistence and attention to the smallest of details
You can fill a bucket with an eye dropper if it doesn't leak. You can fail with a firehose if bucket leaks.
This is a new high in low
The fool thinks he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool - Shakespeare
Compare it to a beauty p[agent. The winner is not the most beautiful woman but the woman whom most people think everybody else will choose.
When it becomes serious, you have to lie'. (Juncker)
He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still”~Lao Tzu
There is no such thing as Information Overload…only Filter Failure
Tim Ferriss says, “Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”
Wat is het toppunt van sadisme? Een dove een klap geven en zeggen: "Wie niet horen wil, moet maar voelen"
Winners find a way to win.
We Are What We Seek.
It opens your mind
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it.
In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.
Men (people) are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? | Alber Einstein
The Pretense of Knowledge We have no true idea what we are doing, just a guess and a hope.
Crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.
To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm. In the physical sciences there may be little objection to trying to do the impossible; one might even feel that one ought not to discourage the over-confident because their experiments may after all produce some new insights. But in the social field the erroneous belief that the exercise of some power would have beneficial consequences is likely to lead to a new power to coerce other men being conferred on some authority.
Hill climbers and valley crossers
Brian Ferry referred to his West London recording studio as "The Fuhrerbunker" (Adolf Hitler's bunker during World War II).
If you have no privacy and no freedom, you have nothing to hide.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” —Mark Twain
SEP: Somebody Else's Problem
Have a nice day UNLESS you've made OTHER PLANS
She's the sort of woman who lives for others – you can tell the others by their hunted expression.” – C.S. Lewis
When the tyrant died people were surprised so many mourners attended his funeral. “They wanted to make sure he was dead”
Lady Astor: “If you were my husband, I would put poison in your coffee. Churchill: “If you were my wife, I would drink it.”
So just how are you thing morning?” The Frenchman with typical French accent: “Better than you.”
Well I certainly can't argue with logic like yours”
A Member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.” “That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Clarence Darrow
He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.” – Moses Hadas
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” Mark Twain
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde
I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.” – George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill. Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second … if there is one.” – Winston Churchill, in response.
I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.” -Stephen Bishop
I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.” -Irvin S. Cobb
He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” -Samuel Johnson
He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating
In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” – Charles, Count Talleyrand
His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” – Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.” – Groucho Marx
Doing 4% less does not get you 4% less. Doing 4% less may very well get you 95% less. That's because almost good enough gets you nowhere. No sales, no votes, no customers. The sad lie of mediocrity is the mistaken belief that partial effort yields partial results. In fact, the results are usually totally out of proportion to the incremental effort.
Big organizations have the most trouble with this, because they don't notice the correlation. It's hidden by their momentum and layers of bureaucracy. So a mediocre phone rep or a mediocre chef may not appear to be doing as much damage as they actually are. The flip side of this is that when you are at the top, the best in the world, the industry leader, a tiny increase in effort and quality can translate into huge gains. For a while, anyway.
And a certain phrase appears again and again in literature about technology: "If the Wright Brothers hadn't figured out how to fly, someone else would have." "If Bill Gates hadn't done it, someone else would have." "If we hadn't done it in 1971, someone else would have invented the microprocessor in a year or two" (Intel's Ted Hoff). "If we hadn't done it, somebody else would have" (the Manhattan Project's Robert Dickey). "If I hadn't done it, someone else would have" (the Third Reich's Adolph Eichmann).
Just an illusion. There is certainly plenty of evidence that much of what we do is the result of unconscious brain processing, and that our consciousness seems to be interpreting what has happened, rather than driving it. For example, experiments in 1985 by Benjamin Libet of the University of California in San Francisco suggested that a signal to move a finger appears in the brain several hundred milliseconds before someone consciously decides to move that finger. The idea that we have conscious free will may be an illusion, at least some of the time. Even when we think we are making rational choices and decisions, this may be illusory too The intriguing possibility is that we simply do not have access to all of the unconscious information on which we base our decisions, so we create fictions upon which to rationalise them, says Kringelbach. That may well be a good thing, he adds. If we were aware of how we made every choice we would never get anything done - we cannot hold that much information in our consciousness. Wilson backs up this idea with some numbers: he says our senses may take in more than 11 million pieces of information each second, whereas even the most liberal estimates suggest that we are conscious of just 40 of these. Nevertheless it is an unsettling thought that perhaps all our conscious mind ever does is dream up stories in an attempt to make sense of our world. "The possibility is left open that in the most extreme case all of the people may confabulate all of the time," says Hall.
Life is tough. It takes up all your time, all your weekends, and what do you get at the end of it? Death, a great reward.
Conversation as the senator enjoyed it – spontaneous wit, shared gossip, sharp observations which might be spun off mutually into some profound or fantastic dissertation on the nature of human affairs
WAG principle; wild ass guess
The only thing you can be a figment of is someone's imagination
Too Big to Know
Lecturing Birds on Flying
It’s unlucky to be superstitious
Action this day
Situational awerness
Machine Earning
Thought bubble
Tractatus
Ustad, or “learned one.
Ceteris paribus. It means ‘all other things being held constant.’
Sepulchral relating to a tomb or interment. gloomy; dismal.
Reisefieber in German, resfeber in Swedish, a vivid term for the acute anxiety felt before a journey
Before Fibonacci Sequence, we believed that the number of flower petals were random.
There is a difference between knowing what something is (certainty) and knowing how something is (randomness)
A scientific guide to writing great headlines on Twitter, Facebook and your blog Use action words: more verbs, fewer nouns. After analyzing 200,000 link containing tweets, I found that tweets that contained more adverbs and verbs had higher CTRs than noun and adjective heavy tweets.
How much do you normally spend on a bottle of wine? About thirty minutes, max
I learn from the mistakes of people who take my advice
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. - Albert Einstein
Caca de vaca - Bovine feces - Bullshit = Cow dung
Pants shitter - cagato addosso - Hosenscheisser
What we got here is a failure to communicate
Humans need not apply
IF YOU ARE NOT LIVING ON THE EDGE, YOU ARE TAKING UP TOO MUCH ROOM.
After the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next.'
Made by thinking
Turbulence of a cataract
The universe shouldn’t exist, according to CERN scientists. Yeah it's definitely not a problem with the model.
Combine originality (conceiving novel ideas), fluency (generating many ideas) and flexibility (navigating between ideas)
Not my circus, not my monkey
Austerity” within the European Commission?” “No,” I replied. “They want to replace it with “Growth Friendly Fiscal Consolidation”.
To paraphrase Ayn Rand, don’t bother analysing nonsense, instead ask what it accomplishes.
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength
Be the change you want to see in the world.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." Viktor Frankl
There is no evil in things changing, just as there is no good in persisting in a new state." Marcus Aurelius
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life.” —Telamon of Arcadia
Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise." Cato
A happy life doesn't mean an easy life.
Don't be pretentious: just stick to your principles. And rest assured that, if you remain true to them, the same people who made fun of you will come to admire you." Epictetus
Do me a favour: Don't do me any favours" aka Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.”
In hurrying we often end up causing delays worse than if we’d taken it slow.
Hurrying means haste and rashness
More haste, less speed
Better a safe commander than a bold commander
That is done quickly enough which is done well enough
Festina lente. Make haste, slowly
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
Splotch mark with a blot or smear of something.
Haigh-Probability: fall into the trap of believing that your chance of winning the Jackpot in a Lottery is 50%, on the grounds that there are just two alternatives, either you win or you do not!
To draw its picture is like a blind man sensing a snowflake. One touch and it’s gone.
I am a possibilist.
Lenin is often credited with coining the term ‘useful idiot’, poleznyi durak in Russian, meaning one who can be used to spread propaganda without being aware of it, or subscribing to the goals intended by the manipulator
The force of his mind overcame his every impediment.
Gingham, also called Vichy check, is a medium-weight balanced plain-woven fabric typically with tartan (plaid), striped, or check duotone patterns, in bright colour and in white made from dyed cotton or cotton-blend yarns.
Sycophantic describes behavior that is excessively fawning, obsequious, or insincerely flattering, usually aimed at gaining favor or advantage from someone powerful. It implies a servile, bootlicking attitude, often disapproved of for lacking integrity. Recently, it is used to describe AI models that agree with users to gain approval.
Wherever five economists were gathered there were six opinions and two of them were Keynes's
Seemed find rest only in motion
He got through all his business with astonishing expedition. He had an amazing capacity to switch from one thing to another; and despite all he did he seemed unhurried, with plenty of time for friendship
Cleverness was the alternative to submission or rebellion: through cleverness one could manipulate any situation to one’s advantage.
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong
Clever speculators like George Soros were quick to realise that politicians’ attempts to bet against fundamental economic realities were as futile as my attempts to get laid sporting a Miami Vice-like ponytail and bum-fluff goatee.
If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow
Begin to believe that the sun really does shine out of their arse.
Stripped to their essence, many social forecasts may be paraphrased in one of two ways. The first is: “Things will continue roughly as they have been.” When pressed, the pooh-bahs and prognosticators admit a further clause: “until something changes.”
Stupid means: someone who harms others without procuring any gain for himself or herself
We learn from history that we do not learn from history
The gigantic, universal ψ wave that contains all the possible worlds is like Hegel’s dark night in which all cows are black
It's like an elephant treading on an anthill. The elephant will kill thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps millions of ants, but in the end the [ants’] numerical superiority will win out, and they will climb up him and consume him to the bone
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
All your economic models are premised on people being smart and rational, and yet all the people you know are idiots.
There is no one in the world who is as smart as you think you are.”
Asked people if they thought North Korea was like Red China. They said yes. He asked them if Red China was like North Korea—and they said no.
The absence of a feature is a feature.
In the words of Mark Twain, such students have let their schooling interfere with their education.
The danger is that by extending probability to everything, it is easy to be seduced into thinking that one tool—calculating probabilities—is sufficient for dealing with all kinds of uncertainty. As a consequence, other important tools, such as rules of thumb, are left in the cupboard.
The important point is that ignoring information can lead to better, faster, and safer decisions. The gaze heuristic is successful because of our evolved brains. That’s why pilots, outfielders, or dogs can rely on it, while it is of limited use for robots and computers.
Good errors help us to learn and to discover. A system that makes no errors will learn little and discover even
It’s not enough to boost our self-image solely by our own successes. If someone we view as a peer is winning, we feel like we’re losing by comparison
We can’t just “absorb” experiences and expect to learn. As novelist and philosopher Aldous Huxley recognized, “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” There is a big difference between getting experience and becoming an expert.
Second-guessing is for losers.
Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems.
The moralizing do-gooder, the self-righteous evangelist busily saving others whilst incapable of saving himself.
A useful way of polarizing the debate for those with no interest in resolving it.
Richard Feynman claimed, ‘I’m smart enough to know I’m dumb’, and was comfortable with not fully understanding things, saying, ‘I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing.’
In the words of H. P. Lovecraft, ‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.’
Management is not easy. It's watching someone do job worse than you. That's why it sucks.
I tried to be normal once. Worst Two Minutes) of My Life.
You will forget me before I forget you.
Naturally introverted selectively extroverted
Hocus pocus i need coffee to focus
Not my circus not my monkeys but apparently i'm the ringmaster of this shit show
Never argue with an idiot. They'll only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. Mark Twain,
Ronald Reagan, he said socialism works only in heaven where they don't need it and in hell where they already have it.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer.
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. Margaret Toucher.
The last capitalist we hang will be the one who sold us the rope. Carl Marx.
No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven, unless it's roots reach down to hell - Carl Jung
May the bridges I burn light your way
I'm not arguing I'm just explaining why I'm right
You shouldn’t worry about criticism from someone that you would never ask advice from.
You're asking me how a watch works. For now we'll just keep an eye on the time.
You can take it from my cold dead hand
You are a grown man who still hasn't learned to look both ways before he crosses the fucking street!
The ego has landed
Risk is the price to pay for opportunity
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. Thomas Jefferson
Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.
Not even when I had nothing to do did I do nothing,
Sometimes you have to start a fight to discover how to win it.
Fear not the man who's practiced 10000 kicks but the man who's practiced one kick ten thousand times - Bruce Lee
Mosquito in a nudist colony
Most plans are decent. Most execution is shitty. Focus on the shitty part.
He doesn't one side from a screwdriver from the other
The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action." - Confucius.
The optimist says: “The glass is half full.” The pessimist says: “The glass is half empty.” The engineer says: “The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.”
Reading can seriously damage your ignorance.
Reputation is for slaves. Honor, Courage, & Integrity is for the Self-Owned." - Nassim Taleb
In your actions, don't procrastinate. In your conversations, don't confuse. In your thoughts, don't wander. In your soul, don't be passive or aggressive. In your life, don't be all about business."
When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.
The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit
You can't make the same mistake twice. The second time you make it, it's no longer a mistake, it's a choice.
I begin to speak only when I'm certain what I'll say isn't better left unsaid." CATO
Why anyone would expect better decisions to be made by third parties who pay no price for being wrong is one of the mysteries of our time. - Thomas Sowell
Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles. Dostoievski
Albert Einstein: “A Foolish Faith In Authority Is The Worst Enemy Of The Truth”
Veranderen van standpunt is moeilijker dan het blijven verdedigen van vastgeroeste waarheden – daar is lef voor nodig
The beatings will continue until morale improves
You may very well think that but I couldn't possibly comment on it
I find your lack of faith disturbing
I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing [Socrates]
No one cares about how hard you worked or how much you suffered, people only care about who you are and what you can do today.
I'm Getting Word Salad And I Don't Even Have Dressing
Treat ideas as hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be protected
Seek information or views that are different than your own and update your beliefs when the evidence suggests they should
Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!
Para bellum is Latin for "prepare for war" and is often used within the context of the phrase Si vis pacem, para bellum, meaning "If you want peace, [you should] prepare for war".
Lord of the plains
The Apparently Unthinkable Becomes The Inevitable
Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day, and it sure wasn’t built by a single person, either.
The most painful moments are not those we spend with uninteresting people; rather, they are those spent with uninteresting people trying hard to be interesting.
Before you try to be right, try to avoid being wrong. Trying to be right has a tendency for us to want the world to work how we think it should. Trying to avoid being wrong helps aligns us with how the world really works. You have to avoid losing before you can win.
The mind tends to create problems when it's not busy solving them.
To anger a Conservative, lie to them. To anger a liberal, tell them the truth.
Unsubscribe, unfollow, mute, block. You have every right to choose what you consume.
It is not much good being wise among fools and sane among lunatics.
Looking back, the best outcomes came from pure actions, without motive."
A lot of people like making money more than they enjoy having money. The change, not the accumulated amount, is the thrill.
I attack ideas, not people. Dumb dumbs can't tell the difference.
School, politics, sports, and games train us to compete against others. True rewards - wealth, knowledge, love, fitness, and equanimity - come from ignoring others and improving ourselves."
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” — Henry Ford
We confuse the necessary and the causal:
Because all surviving technologies have some obvious benefits, we are led to believe that all technologies offering obvious benefits will survive.
There are two types of apologies. One by people relieving their conscience. The other is by those who are caught.
Hallo ik ben de koning En jij ben onderdaan En ik heb geld als water En jij ben de kraan En jij heb grote zorgen En ik weer een miljoen En ik ga jou vertellen Dat wij het samen doen
There are no solutions, only trade offs. - Thomas Sowell
To be intelligent, read. To be wise, observe.
A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.
If you want less competition, pick a harder problem."
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei
Das is nicht einmal falsch: That is not even wrong
Uitgifte kluiten en daar is het riet
Americanism: Using money you haven’t earned to buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like. [Robert Quillen (1887–1948)]
Their number one is the sadistically named hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, or the fear of long words
At some point, the proper peripatetic view (I don't know if I'll see it)
Since its inception, academia has been grounded in the idea that knowledge of the chemical composition of ink will improve one's writing." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property. - Ludwig von Mises
It's not things that upset us but our judgments about things." Epictetus
Managing the economy without economists is like managing a war without stamp collectors." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” — Epictetus
The most common lies a man tells are to himself. - Nietzsche
When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing; he believes in anything. - attributed to Chesterton
You don't understand Freedom until it's taken away.
The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.” ______Karl Popper
Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body.” -Seneca
When they offer it for free they don't tell you what it cost.
Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time.” –Edith Eger
Large events are unforeseeable and have a disproportionally large impact on outcomes. Thus it's better to prepare than to predict.
The rarest of human qualities is consistency." — Jeremy Bentham
I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you." – Friedrich Nietzsche
If you are never invited, they can't ask you to leave.
There is no fruit which is not bitter before it is ripe." - Publilius Syrus
I begin to speak only when I'm certain what I'll say isn't better left unsaid." - Cato
Capitalism: bread with no lines. Socialism: lines with no bread.
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own." - Marcus Aurelius
One of the greatest errors in finance is to think that people know something peaks when it actually peaks. It is like using the rear view mirror while thinking you are looking ahead. A peak is determined ex post.
I do what I do because I'm interested in doing what I do, so to speak.
Judge no one. Just improve yourself.
Set goals that scare you a little and excite you a lot.
The one who chooses silence over reacting is a powerful person.
The last truck to drive over a bridge before it collapses isn’t the root cause of the collapse.
Pause, think, talk. Most people skip the first two.
Those always skeptical and distrustful with small things tend to be gullible when it comes to big things.
A man is great not because he hasn't failed; a man is great because failure hasn't stopped him."
There is no more unmistakable sign of failure than that of a middle-aged man boasting of his successes in college.
The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Take a simple idea and take it seriously." – Charlie Munger
Banning their propaganda so we only have our propaganda.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes; Who guards the guards?”, “Who watches the watchers?”
Management is not easy. It's watching someone do job worse than you.
Progress is down to the unreasonable man
Philip Marlowe said it best when he said “From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
Willfull ignorance
Cassandra curse: Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, but was also cursed by the god Apollo so that her true prophecies would not be believed.
To cure cancer with a Band-Aid. Put a band aid on a tumour and act like it cures cancer
It's not what he said it's what you heard
Think of how dumb the average person is. Now realize half the people are dumber than that.
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. ― Taleb Nassim Nicholas
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. - T. S. Eliot
Like A Mute Talking To A Deaf Person
An Investment In Knowledge Pays The Best Interest: Ben Franklin
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made - Groucho Marx
Some times you have to start a fight to know how to win it.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared
Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception
It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver
It is better to act and repent than not to act and regret
Progress is down to the unreasonable man
I did not think that could happen. They think it could not happen to them. They just believe that they are special and this will not happen to them. Anything that can happen can happen to you. You must know and be prepared for it to happen to you also. A false accusation. A bankruptcy. Being cheated on. Getting sick. Whatever. You are not exempt. You must be ready.
If it’s humanly possible know that you can do it also [Marcus Aurelius]
You know, there is no one in the world who is as smart as you think you are.
“Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.” Heraclitus
Truth is still truth, even if you don't believe in it.
Those who talk should do and only those who do should talk
I AM NOT ALWAYS RIGHT – But I am never wrong
It is like an elephant treading on an anthill. The elephant will kill thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps millions of ants, but in the end the ants numerical superiority will win out, and they will climb up him and consume him to the bone.
Wagner’s music is better than it sounds: Edgar Wilson Nye famously
A man's reach should exceed his grasp
The tortoise is beating the hare
Great at doing what you are told
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. FDR
Buddhist teaching Ware Tada Taru wo Shiru (吾 唯 足 知) — I only know enough, I am content with what I have because that is all I need.
Man's character is determined by how much truth he can handle [Nietze]
A hundred suspicions don't make a proof - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?
The best way to predict the future is to create it
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance
Anything That Is Not Censored Is A Lie
We should always be aware that what now lies in the past once lay in the future.
We need the ability to focus, to lock in, to do what has been termed “deep work.”
Surprise happens so often Wolfowitz said, that it's surprising we're still surprised by it.
If voting made a difference, they wouldn't let you do it" - Mark Twain
Bigger Doses Of "Hopium"
Vincit Qui Se Vincit - He Conquers Who Conquers Himself. A person who overcomes their weaknesses or failings, who is able to control their feelings and actions, wins life's most important battle. It is a conversion of a phrase by Publilius Syrus, a Latin writer of maxims (1st century BC).
Things you know you didn't know you know. We do not know what we will know.
Lenin is often credited with coining the term ‘useful idiot’, poleznyi durak in Russian, meaning one who can be used to spread propaganda without being aware of it, or subscribing to the goals intended by the manipulator
Many mickles make a muckle: things add up. Even little ones.
Not even wrong
By definition, if you are trying to measure your success, you are unsuccessful; and if you are trying to measure your happiness, you are unhappy.
Make sure that you are in a situation where the constant mistakes are small and can be used for something." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing and that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Antifragile
There is something like a switch in us that kills the individual in favor of the collective when people engage in communal dances, mass riots, or war. Your mood is now that of the herd. You are part of what Elias Canetti calls the rhythmic and throbbing crowd." - Taleb
The epiphany I had in my career in randomness came when I understood that I was not intelligent enough, nor strong enough, to even try to fight my emotions." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Fooled by Randomness
Many get the advice they need and say: “I already know that.”. If you aren’t acting on it, you don’t “know it" in any meaningful sense.
How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them." Marcus Aurelius
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (one of the doer-Stoic authors), “fire feeds on obstacles." -
The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference." -
Being left is like being right One of the infinite ways that man can choose to be an imbecile: both are in effect forms of moral hemiplegia"
Fox Guarding The Henhouse
If You Don't Respect My Freedoms, I Don't Respect Your Pronouns
The decreasing popularity of theory corresponds to the naïve belief that science, as Lord Kelvin famously put it, is all about measurement and that the data somehow "speak for themselves"—when in reality, empirical data are useful only in the way they are interpreted by thinking, choosing, acting human beings.
Question: How long does it take for an average person to become a nurse? Answer: Average people don't become nurses…
He chides us for being protective of our property but spendthrifts with our time. Life is short, he says, don’t waste it.
Mosquito in the nudist colony. No idea where to start.
Intellectuals on the left let you know they are on the left. Those on the right usually tell you they are on the centre. Those on the centre don't tell you anything.
The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one."
If you try to solve a small problem with a large system, you will fail to solve the problem, and cause some new ones
If you try to solve a small problem with a large system, you will fail. Localism is having boundaries at multiple scales "
Yeah! The "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" is real and Taleb brought it up at # RWRI. Whenever I read something regarding my field of expertise, newspaper articles are mostly bunk. Yet I happily read the next article believing most of it. Well, not these days. Nor should you.
Of course, the Genetically Modified Mosquito project has gone wrong, with, really, "unforeseen outcomes". When will IYIs learn that we don't understand complex systems enough to play with them? Or when will we learn that science is not scientism?" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Virtue is the difference between what you do in public and what you do in private." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Socialism promises guaranteed food, medicine & income if you give up your freedom. When, as always, it fails to deliver you don't get your freedom back.
When information goes ‘in one ear and out the other,’ it’s often because it doesn’t have anything to stick to.” —Joshua Foer
Letting COVID-19 spread while we slowly roll out a vaccine, is like a person with a bacterial infection taking antibiotics at too low a dose." It won't kill the infection, and the bacteria that remain will be those with resistance to the drug.
Why did governments consider and implement strategies known to cost many lives without scientific basis for benefit?
In a dark night all cows are black [Hegel]
New Zealand's PM looked at the challenge, consulted with scientists, made a decision based upon the consequences, executed on the plan and succeeded.
Bureaucracy is a construction by which a person is conveniently separated from the consequences of his or her actions." -
Making sense and being right are not the same ting (sic) - Fat Tony - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
What happens to one man may happen to all.” Publius Syrus
In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for females." - nntaleb
People fill their homes with excess things and travel to be free of them.
If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person." - Seneca, Epistles 104.8
More data means more information, but it also means more false information." - nntaleb
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl
They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom." - nntaleb
To choose a model is to choose assumptions - E. Tufte
Wealth can only be redistributed if it was first created.” -Sir Roger Scruton
Childhood is over when you realize your parents are not always right. Adulthood starts when you realize neither are you.
BOUNDARIES are NOT tantamount to ISOLATION. Boundaries define interfaces between different structures, enabling them to interact constructively
Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Simplicity is not so simple to attain." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries,"
Life rule (also pandemic rule): Don't choose advice based upon what you would like to be true.
Good things come to those who sweat
The same people who demand proof before accepting one piece of information, are often quick to claim another without any evidence whatsoever.
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Things you know you didn't know
We do not know what we do not know
Simple things should be simple. Complex things should be possible.
Please excuse the crudity of this model. I didn't have time to build it to scale or paint it.
Life isn’t short… we just waste a lot of it - Seneca
Fences make good neighbors
What makes fat tail so lethal? When they're not in the distribution. Yet.
It's not what you pay attention to, it's what you ignore. Maybe ignoring is a form of attention. If actively done. Just looked at from a different perspective.
Things are never dangerous because they are fragile, they are only dangerous when you don't know that they are fragile.
It is not possible to have fun when you try." - Nassim Taleb wisdom
The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself." -
If we are the only animal with a sense of justice, it would clearly be because we also are about the only animal with a sense of cruelty." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos: you want to use them, not hide from them. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
We have the illusion that people have conversations in order to communicate ideas; they usually communicate ideas in order to have conversations.
When you have no volatility. It's all volatility. Time just hasn't shown it to you yet.
We fall in love with the visual. The observable. The evidentiary.
The moment they stepped on the Titanic it was over. Time just hadn't told them yet.
If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?" -
If you're not losing your not winning. If you're not confused you're not learning. You're not wrong you're not right. You need the inverse. The inverse is where the potential energy is.
Don't ask the carpenter who built the roulette wheel how to play roulette. He is an expert, just not the right kind. Doctors are wonderful. But understanding risk is not their expertise.
Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. Warren Buffett
Never explain why something important is important.
There’s a lovely Bill Bailey anecdote about spotting a Jaguar in Brazil. “Always look it in the eyes”, says the ranger. As Bailey stares at the beast the Jaguar starts to become angry, and the ranger becomes alarmed. Then he realises: “Sorry, did I say always? I meant never.”
People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Regular minds find similarities in stories (and situations); finer minds detect differences." -
We tend to define "rude" less by the words used (what is said) than by the status of the recipient (to whom it is addressed)." -
Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry." -
I am never bothered by normal people; it is the bull***tter in the intellectual profession who bothers me." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Skin in the Game
Robust is when you care more about the few who like your work than the multitude who dislike it (artists); fragile when you care more about the few who dislike your work than the multitude who like it (politicians)." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Bed of Procrustes
Used skillfully, a compliment will be much more offensive than any disparagement." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Research on happiness shows that those who live under a self-imposed pressure to be optimal in their enjoyment of things suffer a measure of distress.”
True humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the rest is either shyness or good marketing" -
Things always become obvious after the fact" -
When you look at the past, the past will always be deterministic, since only one single observation took place." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Fooled by Randomness
I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus." -
It's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it." Seneca
Our life is what our thoughts make it." Marcus Aurelius
Don’t complain too loud about wrongs done you; you may give ideas to your less imaginative enemies." -
For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation" -
"They agree that chess training only improves chess skills but disagree that classroom training (almost) only improves classroom skills." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Most info-Web-media-newspaper types have a hard time swallowing the idea that knowledge is reached (mostly) by removing junk from peoples heads." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Wisdom in the young is as unattractive as frivolity in the elderly." - @nntaleb
Accept the rationality of time, never its fairness and morality." -
The main difference between Mediterraneans and nonMeds: Farniente (doing nothing) is active for a Med." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
And remember that it is risk takers and the mechanism of risk-taking that pulled more than a billion people out of poverty, not the design of some NGOer, civil servant, or some other acroparasite on a steady salary. Gabish?" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Memory is more of a self-serving dynamic revision machine: you remember the last time you remembered the event, and without realizing it," - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Black Swan
Happiness is not defined by how people say they "feel" but by what they do. (Revelation of preferences)
For studying courage in textbooks doesn’t make you any more courageous than eating cow meat makes you bovine. By some mysterious mental mechanism, people fail to realize that the principal thing you can learn from a professor is how to be a…" -
Fat tails don't emerge from bad times. They emerge from the optimization of good times.
If Not Now When
The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it
Not whether it makes sense but whether it works
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value -Albert Einstein-
A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see"
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Peter Drucker
When you beat up someone physically, you get exercise and stress relief; when you assault him verbally on the Internet, you just harm yourself." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Just as we tend to underestimate the role of luck in life in general, we tend to overestimate it in games of chance."
I am still looking for someone to give a rigorous explanation/explanation of difference between populism & democracy. Nothing yet." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Journalists feel contempt for those who fear them and a deep resentment for those who don't." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
We learn not for school, but for life." Seneca
If the professor is not capable of giving a class without preparation, don’t attend. People should only teach what they have learned organically, through experience and curiosity…or get another job."
Life is much, much easier when you treat all humans as flawed and imperfect, but flawed in quite different ways." - Nassim Taleb
ATTENTION SALARY PEOPLE: Next Friday when your guaranteed monthly paycheck is deposited, take a moment of gratitude for the entrepreneurs who took the risks so you get this risk-free income. Shaming an risk-taker for losing money is like shaming a soldier for losing a limb."
Restaurants get you in with food to sell you liquor; religions get you in with belief to sell you rules." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The same past data can confirm a theory and its exact opposite! If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Truth is in the extremes. There is no noise in the far tails." - Nassim Taleb
Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse" -
It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows." Epictetus
On unintended consequences: In a system that works, you don't change one element without going through the whole testing process again
I am very rude to high status people who are rude to waiters/waitresses. Usually twice as rude. Sometimes three times, just to make sure. You cannot believe how many people on the "left" are rude to waiters, as they feel their "mission" insulates them from humans."
You can make a persuasive case that all your troubles are the fault of others. You will convince some people. You might even convince yourself. Are your troubles now solved?
Much of the social history of the Western World, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good
You’ll never do anything great unless you’re willing to look like an idiot in the short term.
While it’s not a principle, I often think of the parable of the Taoist farmer. The Taoist farmer has one horse, and the horse runs off. The villagers lament his misfortune, and he replies “We’ll see.” The horse returns with four more horses, and the farmer is praised for his good luck. He replies, “We’ll see.” His son then attempts to break the horses, and breaks his leg. Again, the villagers console him for his bad luck. The reply again is “We’ll see.” Then the army comes and conscripts all the able-bodied young men, but the farmer’s son is spared."
The first thing we do in my house is say do you want empathy or do you want a solution?
The problem with you is you know everything that is wrong and nothing that is right
Better to beg for forgiveness after than to ask for permission before
Reading makes a full man - meditation a profound man - discourse a clear man. B. Franklin
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best." Epictetus
There is no strength in numbers. (Lawrence) Dominic (Fats) McCarthy, he killed 22 Germans and captured fifty.
I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.” – George Carlin
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. Oscar Wilde
Don't speak about what you've done in the past. Don't speak about what you're going to do in the future. Only speak about what you're in the process of doing now.
Comparison is the thief of joy - Theodore Roosevelt
I wanted to be liked by all but instead was hated by no one.
Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that has never been." —Theodore von Kármán
Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” ― Charles Bukowski
Speech is the gift of all, but the thought of few.” Cato the Elder
Heads I win, tails you lose
One of the less pleasant aspects of The Law is explaining a legal concept to a person and having them tell you you're WRONG. People assume The Law is rational, and often that's not the case. Engineers are the worst. "But this doesn't make sense, therefore it can't be true."
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past George Orwell "1984"
We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could, we didn't stop to think if we should.
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” - Martin Fowler
There Are No Bugs, Just TODOs
Do or Do Not – there is no try
Some people are only funny when they try to be serious
News (Nassim Taleb – “To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.”)
You get what you deserve. Instead of being a good person today, you choose instead to become one tomorrow." Marcus Aurelius
Successful people failed more than most made attempts.
The most damaging phrase in the language is.. it's always been done this way” - Grace Hopper
If it makes no sense, it is nonsense
What if he knows I know that he knows
Just because we can doesn't mean we should
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven
He’s spiky and sincere, thoughtful and amused
One of the things that characterizes some of the failures of 20th-century art,” says Kubrick, “is an obsession with total originality. Innovation means moving it forward, but not abandoning the classical form, the art form you’re working with.
The first revolution is when you change your mind.” - Gil Scott-Heron.
The Purpose Of Life Is Not Happiness: It’s Usefulness
Live - think - fight - conquer like a viking
It doesn’t matter that the map is of the wrong city, it’s the only map we’ve got!
Being approximately right most of the time is better than being precisely right occasionally
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on who gets eaten.
The purpose of the project isn't to make predictions but to test theories.
No country has ever failed from too much freedom. Plenty have failed from too much government.
Prosthetic knowledge: Information that a person does not know, but can access as needed using technology
The Singularity is Further Than it Appears
Life is about execution rather than purpose
If the past, by bringing surprises, did not resemble the past previous to it (what I call the past's past), then why should our future resemble our current past?
There’s nothing so useless as solving something that was not a problem to begin with.
A prediction is wrong only if it costs you something. A prediction is right only if it makes you something. The rest is tawk
The main thread is that while there is inordinate uncertainty about what is going on, there is great certainty about what one should do about it.
The problem with Taleb isnt that he's an asshole. He is an asshole. The problem with Taleb is that he's an asshole and he's right.
Best training ever for rigor & critical reasoning is…TRADING. You can ONLY survive long term by going against wrong CONSENSUS by "experts
General Principle: the solutions (on balance) need to be simpler than the problems
Restaurants get you in with food to sell you liquor; religions get you in with belief to sell you rules
Pharma is better at inventing diseases for its existing treatments, than treatments for existing diseases
The Roman dictator Sulla composed his own epitaph, which was: "No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full."
My experience is that money and transactions purify relations; ideas and abstract matters like "recognition" and "credit" warp them, creating an atmosphere of perpetual rivalry
The fact that (almost) all degrees have the same duration regardless of the complexity of the underlying field is the best evidence that education has been built around the universities’ needs, not the students’.
Bad idea terminator
Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone
More data means more information, but it also means more false information
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. —Voltaire
Explaining Water to Fish
When gambling, think about what's probable. When hedging, think about what's plausible. When preparing, think about what's possible.
The real difference in politics isn't the "right" vs "left" gradation but rather "Greek" vs "Roman". Greek = puts theory above practice. Roman= puts practice above theory. Be Roman. Now.
You haven’t mastered a tool until you understand when it should not be used. ~ Kelsey Hightower
The great thing about geniuses is how much effort they put into everything.
Don't sleepwalk through life
Eat your own dog food
Spit Out Their Own Cooking
Vague ideas and clear images
't is net als een geloof: ze horen wat ze willen, maar verder zijn ze doof
Churchill was “easily satisfied with the best.”
The grasshopper is an image related to a specific Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 12:5, in which it says, "Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets." In alternate versions, it may read, "the grasshopper drags itself along," but both speak to the idea that man cannot bear the least burden.
Why live if you can be buried for ten dollars?
If advertising worked candle makers could convince us to abandon light bulbs with a few ad campaigns - Ludwig von Mises
Seek progress, not perfection
Diversity’s valued — unless it’s diversity of opinion
Common Sense: argumentum ad populum
What I cannot build, I do not understand - Richard Feynman
I’m sorry Mr. Blackjack Dealer, that was not the card I needed. Deal again”
Secondhand dealers in ideas
Warren Buffett once said: “investing is simple, but not easy”.
The Obstacle is The Way
Ego is The Enemy
Any damned fool can criticize, but it takes a genius to design it in the first place. — Edgar Schmued, Chief Designer North American Aviation
In heaven, the Engineers are German, the Cooks are Italian, and the Police are British. In hell, the Cooks are British, the Engineers are Italian, and the Police are German.
News is the first rough draft of history." Philip L. Graham
Don't look back, you're not going that way"
Friends are easy I need interesting enemies.
Of course the Intellectual Yet Idiot insiders would pick Hillary. They share her passion for words without meaning, analysis without facts, and promises without performance."
I Think, Therefore I Laugh
More than absurd is no longer absurd
I got being right down to an art
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. Albert Einstein
Do you know why we wear ties? To signify seriousness of purpose.
Ours is not to question why, - but to do, if like the schoolboy, we want our kiss.
He's a lemming. Soon as you net one major allocator, he'll be in.
We just one need domino.
The bullet train leaves.
Let's see if we can Tinker Tailor his ass.
Because when I pull a deal off the table, I leave Nagasaki behind.
Product People, Mind the Gap!
The Industrial Age was about producing and owning stuff. The Digital Age is about shaping and using stuff.
What we think we know, but don't. And why it matters.
Lecturing Birds on Flying
Jumping from 15th floor is just the same thing as taking the stairs, "just a bit quicker"?
Layering stupidity on stupidity just makes more stupidity.
What You Don't Know Might Hurt You
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, it is the rule.” Nietzsche
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
Nothing neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. Our life, as Marcus wrote, is dyed by the color of our thoughts. Perspective is everything. So choose it wisely.
He was rarely burdened with humility
If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit"
His ego is not one of the smaller items in the solar system."
I see more and more evidence to support the theory that the amount of intelligence in the world is finite, but the population is increasing rapidly.
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity.
Illegitimi non carborundum is mock-Latin aphorism meaning "Don't let the bastards grind you down"
He has a very tenuous relation with reality
I'm not sad, I'm complicated
In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail - Kirk Douglas.
Be Willing to Put in the Work We Don’t See. In specialized fields, there is no way around the unforgiving, silent, and forgotten hours. Add the word “deliberate” before 10000 hour practice. That’s where most of the magic happens. Ernest Hemingway
Feedback is the Only Shortcut
I call you a low info voter.
They thereupon happily proceed on the fiction that the factors which they can measure are the only ones that are relevant
The Pretense of Knowledge
To an anvil, everything looks like a hammer,
Americans do not like lying to others. It makes them uncomfortable. Their specialty is lying to themselves.
Libertarianism is about replacing authority with laws (legal systems, courts). Hard sciences (math, physics) obey laws, bullshit disciplines (psychology, history, sociology) obey authority. In the absence of skin-in-the-game, authority evolves to BS. In anything.
I love when feminists say “men are pigs.” Then turn right around and say women are equal to men.
People who are shipwrecked and survive tell amazing stories about how dolphins are friendly animals that helped them reach the shore. One never hears from the ones eaten by the dolphins.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool. [Richard Feynman]
In the days of the samurai the apology was completed by seppuku. Ritual self-disemboweling is genuine SITG.
Everything before the "but" is meant to be ignored by the speaker; and everything after the "but" should be ignored by the listener.
The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." ~ Carl Gustave Jung
Mathematics offer certainties but not effectiveness Engineering offers effectiveness but not certainties Social Science offers neither certainties nor effectiveness
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others." ~ Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky
Socialism needs capitalists to finance its insanity
Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt. [Richard Feynman]
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." [Hitchens]
People don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent' Bob Dylan
McNamara fallacy (also known as quantitative fallacy) The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
Ricky Gervais. A man has been convicted in a UK court of making a joke that was deemed "grossly offensive". If you don't believe in a person's right to say things that you might find "grossly offensive", then you don't believe in Freedom of Speech.
The agile way is : everybody of the team has another ‚vision‘ of the ‚specification‘ :-D
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen." - Edward V. Berard
What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months." - Frederick P. Brooks
Bureaucracy is a construction by which a person is conveniently separated from the consequences of his/her actions.”
Much of the social history of the Western World, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good
You cannot lift the poor out of poverty by taxing the rich into poverty.
Richard Feynman Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.
Richard Feynman It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
Feynman Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision - Bertrand Russell
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool” – William Shakespeare
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” – W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” – Lao Tzu
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” – Charles Darwin
Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it - Dan Ariely
If we want to learn how to do things the right way, we have to try different versions, and only then will we figure out what really works for us.
If you can’t dazzle them with diamonds, baffle them with bullshit.”
If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn't learn to walk without going to school
Never please everyone – Eli Wallach »
I used to be an atheist until I realised I am God
Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them — David Allen
Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.” — Steven Wright.
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
A critic is someone who never actually goes to the battle, yet who afterwards comes out shooting the wounded.
There’s a lot of tracking of inputs instead of tracking outputs
You don’t want to win an argument, you just want to win
Simplicity is complicated. Our world is dense, complex, and oftentimes, unexplainable; understandably, then, finding simple explanations for its problems is a complicated task.
Designed to make computing more intuitive. In the olden days we would call this "dumbing down."
Nothing is impossible until it is proven to be
I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
I ain't "smart" enough to know what intelligence is, but I been around enough suckers to know what it ain't.
The reaction of one man can be forcast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again. - Isaac Asimov
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
Idiots are fun. No wonder every village wants one.
I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb. Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance Dunning Kruger
Five FEYNMAN rules to live by: i) Don't be afraid of your uniqueness. ii) Do what you get the most pleasure from. iii) Don't worry about what others are thinking. iv) Have a sense of humor and talk honestly. v) Make mistakes and learn.
Forget the mistake, remember the lesson
Apparently when you treat people like they treat you, they get upset
In school you're given the lesson then the test. In life you're given the test, then the lesson
Tact is the ability to tell somebody go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip
The best thing about a Boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." - Ronald Reagan
It seems that the sophistication of French cuisine arose from the need to mask the lack of freshness of the ingredients –much as perfume came from the need to compensate for bad hygiene. In contrast, Italian and East Med cuisines make salient the freshness of the ingredients.
Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone" - @nntaleb
Richard Feynman No idea is true just because someone says so! Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment. If a favorite idea fails a well-designed test, it's wrong!
There’s one problem about data. It’s all from the past” @rorysutherland at dmprogrammatic 2018 - arguing that we should test more weird stuff (and be more creative) in order to achieve better business results.
Creativity is intelligence having fun." – A. Einstein (1879 - 1955)
People worry that computers will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they’re too stupid and they’ve already taken over the world
True story apparently - in 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first English dictionary. At a ball, a group of ladies congratulated him. Ladies: "We are pleased you have left the indecent words out of your dictionary" Dr Johnson: "Ah ha, so you have been looking for them"
Verschlimmbessern: to take a bad thing and make it even worse in a misdirected attempt to improve it.
Trying is the first step towards failure." Homer Simpson
Honor like courage cannot be claimed. It's only demonstrated, so you never know either until after a transaction or event.
Feynman: There's a big difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something!
The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water it.
This isn't right," Pauli is supposed to have said of a student's physics paper. "It's not even wrong."
It's rare to find someone who is consistently wrong on everything. Christine Lagarde…comes close"
The attempt to predict the unknowable by measuring the irrelevant; a task that, in one way or another, employs most people on Wall Street.
Never play chess with a pigeon. It knocks all the pieces over, shits all over the board, then walks around like it's won.' This is a good thing to remember before you start an argument with someone.
It is easier to fool someone than to convince them they've been fooled.
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.
We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by their behavior.
Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.
Learning from mistakes is one of the best ways to learn, but there's no reason those mistakes have to be your own.
Don't practice until you get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
If you raise your kids, you can spoil your grandchildren; however, if you spoil your kids, you will have to raise your grandchildren.
To worry is to pay a debt of misery that may never come due.' Basically, accept inevitable outcomes and do your best to change changeable outcomes to your liking, but know that worrying does nothing.
Never send a human to do a machine’s job. Agent Smith
All good ideas are terrible, until people realize they are obvious. If you're not willing to live through the terrible stage, you'll never get to the obvious part.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Men are from Mars, woman from Venus is not true. It's more like mars and snickers, one is slightly nuttier than the other.
Do you use the map of Tokyo in Rome? Or better nothing? Better analogy would be: do u use the London Underground map for exploring London by foot? People like the illusion of being in control. That's why they chose a wrong map over no map.
Richard Feynman pointed out, knowing the name of something does not mean you know something about it.
1931, New Orleans, mathematician Alfred Korzybski introduced and popularized the idea that the map is not the territory. Maps distil reality, they are necessary but flawed. They allow us to rapidly orientate, communicate, transfer and apply information. We need abstraction. The only way we can process the complexity of reality is to make generalisations
Reading the source material is better than reading other people's opinions about the source material
Better to trip with the feet than the tongue.” —Zeno
You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you.” —Marcus Aurelius
Forget small talk—aim to be meaningful. “Be silent for the most part, or, if you speak, say only what is necessary and in a few words. Talk, but rarely, if occasion calls you, but do not talk of ordinary things—of gladiators or horses races or athletes or of meats or drinks—these are topics that arise everywhere ” —Epictetus
Modernity: we go much, much better at explaining than understanding.
If you think you can't, you're right."
Das ist nicht einmal falsch. (Vertaling: Dat is niet eens fout. Dit oordeel betekent dat de bewering zo vaag is, dat zij niet eens toetsbaar is.)
He had developed the abilty to practice l'arte di non fare niente. This is an Italian expression which translates as the art of doing nothing. Ah, dolce far niente! It is also known as the sweetness of doing nothing.
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
The first thing you need to know about people is that you don’t know the first thing about people.
There is no certainty, only probability.
Perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders
Primus inter pares – first among equals
Nobody Knows Nothing
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
If we all had lots of money, none of us would be rich.
There is NEVER (narrow) evidence of Black Swans before event By logic, someone who never died = immortal, as no evidence of death.
Higher Twaddle
If you believe WHATEVER MODEL you make involving human behavior, you will be humbled.
Remember what the world wants for you it's what's best for the world and not necessarily best for you
IYIs, Intellectuals Yet Idiots, favor things that work in theory but not in practice to things that work in practice but not in theory
The IYI gets first order logic right, but not second or higher order effects, making him totally incompetent in complex domains
Have you ever noticed that the people who can always think of a more worthy cause than yours do fuck all for either.
Nothing holds up the progress of science so much as the right idea at the wrong time
Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone
The world doesn't work the way you think it does.
It’s easy to get the right answer if you never define what the question is
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones
We have the key in our hands, but we cant seem to find the lock
You are a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr Bond.
Engineering method: you don't look at the color of the truck the moment the bridge collapsed
Skin in the game. Brazil: helicopter maintenance must take random rides on helicopters.
Nihil sine la bore (niets zonder arbeid)
Alles ist fertig; es muss nur noch gemacht werden
We don't buy the cow if we can get the milk for free
You can't make the same mistake twice. The second time you make it it's no longer a mistake, it's a choice
If you don't try to chance the future, others will
It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows." Epictetus
This is the sort of theory that works really well in a textbook. But it doesn't work so well in a history book
The lemmings have almost reached the cliff
Nobody can predict the future. You can only create the future.
I and the public know what all Schoolchildren learn those to whom evil is done, do evil in return -WH Auden
“What’s it like playing chess with Obama?” asks a top aid of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Putin replies, “It’s like playing chess with a pigeon. First it knocks over all the pieces, then it shits on the board, and finally it struts around like it won.”
Doing brain surgery with a machete
He often discussed psychopaths, declaring that the personality type, like an elephant, was difficult to define but “you can sure tell one when you see one.”
Part of being a philosopher is being a lifelong learner. School is never out for summer or spring or winter break. You can never be too old or too good at what you do. No, school is for life. And life is school. Learning is a daily thing, wisdom an endless pursuit. You never arrive, you never fill up, you never graduate. Because the world is always revealing new lessons…even in the oldest texts. Therefore, Seneca said, there is no one more foolish than one who stops learning.
How important could the sound it made be, if no one was able to hear it?
When the cry went up once in rehearsal, “Franz, there’s something wrong with this key!”, he told Horowitz that he could fix it in half an hour, a good chance for the maestro to take a coffee break. The break cured the problem. He did not need to touch the key”. - Pianostemmer Franz Mohr over Horowitz
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt
They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
If you don't stand for anything, you will fall for anything
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended.
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas." Curie
Someone who claims that he’s a leader but who has no followers is typically regarded as a fool.
Academia cares whether an idea is new. It doesn't really have to work Industry only cares if an idea works. Doesn't matter if it's new
Understanding is an art. And not everyone is an artist.
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." ― Albert Einstein
It makes me feel skilled rather than like an idiot. That's what good technology does.
No reductive approach, could ever embrace the fullness, the reality of a life. [Alexander Luria]
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. [Albert Einstein]
Conservative social critics have been blowing the apocalyptic bugle at every large-scale tech-driven social change since Socrates' famous complaint about the memory-destroying properties of that newfangled technology called “writing.” A complaint we remember, not incidentally, because it was written down.
Before Gutenberg's Press only about 1% were literate, and those who were literate didn't read as much in an entire lifetime as the average kid reads today before high school.
Unlike sites that tell you how stupid you are, it tells you how stupid everybody else is.
Reputation must be closely guarded, because it is “the most difficult to regain."
We have a major ocean-boiling platforms in development
I found this cool new place called outside. It's like a big room with a really high ceiling, and a giant light bulb that only works half the time, but the graphics are amazing, and the real-time socialization activities are practically limitless.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend
Een egoïst is iemand die niet aan mij denkt
Data is beautiful
- It tells stories
- It creates patterns
- It proves points
- It backs up plans
An ad hominem attack against an individual, not against an idea, is highly flattering. It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Unknown Unknowns ~ Confucius, as quoted in Thoreau's Walden: "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.
There is no certainty, only probability.
DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK
Let me show you my plan for sending you home. Please excuse the crudity of this model. I didn't have time to build it to scale or paint it.
You are all insane, I have proof
"Man does not enter battle to fight, but for victory. He does everything that he can to avoid the first and obtain the second"
Disruption=Growth
And Then There Was None (Backwardation)
If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy
It Doesn't Matter (Until It Does)
If the sauvignon was a joke, then the chardonnay is an insult.
I'm just as intolerant as I was before, but I am infinitely more understanding.
Three Things I Think I Think
“I don't owe Tarantino my craft,” he says, “but I do owe him my place.”
In most of the successful disruption cases the industry doesn't see what has hit them.
The future is not what it used to be" - Robert Graves
It says: "unde non potest esse voluntas magna, difficultate magna." This roughly translates to: "Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great." Niccolo Machiavelli
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan
If you want to accelerate someone's death, give him a personal doctor.
We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders
Sex robot voice
Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.
Statistics show that 100% of people bitten by a snake were close to it.
Ambition or talent: which matters more to success? Both concepts are modernist nonsense. Success is about honour, feeling morally calibrated, absence of shame, not what some newspaper defines from an external metric.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."–Winston Churchill There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."–Aristotle
People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily."–Zig Ziglar
Don't find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain."–Henry Ford
Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it."–Chuck Swindoll
If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near."–Jack Welch
I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door–or I'll make a door."–Rabindranath Tagore
The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."–Ayn Rand
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."–Abraham Lincoln
I would rather die of passion than of boredom."–Vincent van Gogh
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."–Alice Walker
You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year."–Henry Ford
To overcome an irrational fear…replace it with a habit.
If you're afraid to write, write a little, every day. Start with an anonymous blog, start with a sentence. Every day, drip, drip, drip, a habit. If you're afraid to speak up, speak up a little, every day. Not to the board of directors, but to someone. A little bit, every day. Habits are more powerful than fears.
GM went so far as to argue locking people out helps innovation. That's like saying locking up books will inspire kids to be innovative writers, because they won't be tempted to copy passages
How do we know what we think we know?
Een kwaal die typerend is voor onze cultuur: de emotie is de schaamlap van intellectuele luiheid. Arnon Grunberg
Ii wouldn't say my ego is small, but most US and UK academics make me look like Lao Tzu himself.
Never delegate understanding
Prosecutors will be violated
Give the people what they want…isn't nearly as powerful as teaching people what they need.
The internet probably has better things than porn. We're just not looking at it
If you are not using XXX, you're just playing Checkers while the Smart Money is playing Chess.
The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done." -Honoré de Balzac author of Le Père Goriot (1835)
There is a very important distinction between 'complex' and 'complicated'.
Living your public life online isn't worth it. Nothing is worth the amount of abuse you'll get.
Try explaining the concept of water to a fish
I cannot articulate enough to express my dislike to people who think that understanding spoils your experience… How would they know?"
Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's tough to put it back in.
Dehumanizing others is the essence of evil. But you don't have to be a monster—you just have to be human.
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. John Maynard Keynes
Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others. John Maynard Keynes
The fewer the successes, the greater our share of the glory
I have the key in my hand, but i cant seem to find the lock"
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." -Marcus Aurelius
Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact. – Marlene Dietrich
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.'
It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission
Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place…”
Everybody seems normal until you get to know them
Keynes' example of the “beauty contest.” A beauty contest is trying to judge how other people were going to judge the beauty.
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. – Thomas Sowell
I wouldn't give a nickel for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." -Albert Einstein
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse … you are, after all, anonymous.
President of American Association of Buggy-Whip Manufacturers takes a strong stand against internal combustion engine, argues that the so-called “automobile” has “little grounding in theory” and that “results can vary widely based on the particular fuel that is used”
XXX could make the problem of learning if not easy, then at least less hard.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi
Beware the fury of a patient man.”
It is better to be approximately right than exactly wrong.”
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone,” said the legendary economist, John Maynard Keynes
The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary,” said Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.
Looking after the pennies and allowing the pounds to look after themselves
Get rich or die trying
The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps. ― Benjamin Disraeli
Found in translation
There's wrong, there's very wrong and then there's XXXX
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning [Churchill]
The world until yesterday
Felix Dzerjinski heeft gezegd: "Dat u nog vrij bent, betekent niet dat u onschuldig bent, maar dat we ons werk niet goed hebben gedaan.'"
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
I would rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), “The Crack-Up” (1936)
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.
He regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes
My work is a game, a very serious game. M. C. Escher
He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others. Samuel Foote
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. Thomas Paine
The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose. William Cowper (1731 - 1800)
Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding. W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), The Painted Veil, 1925
Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.
Just as most people didn't know they wanted to plug their ears all day and listen to Pink Floyd until Sony produced the Walkman
It would be like telling a carpenter that screws are much stronger than nails, when the carpenter has a hammer and no one has yet invented a screwdriver.
Worse than useless
"Ask what not the goberment can give, but what it can take from you, bitchez!"
He's never wrong about the future, but he does tend to be wrong about how long it takes.
_If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. - Emerson M. Pugh
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein
A jail is a prison for the body. A religion is a prison for the mind.
If logic was stronger than emotion, they wouldn't have fabricated religions
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do? John Maynard Keynes
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. ~ Anais Nin
The brain… it makes you think. Doesn't it?
“I would rather lose half of our clients than half of our clients' money.”– Jean Marie Eveillard, First Eagle Funds
The blood is already in the water, and the sharks know it
You can't predict the future but you can adapt to it.
Boolean queries are like Newtonian physics: kind of ok on a grand scale but not really good at detail. Semantic queries are like quantum mechanics: not deterministic but provide exact results.
The exploration of the familiar
Greatness courts failure (GCF or GcF)
Life is the art of drawing without an eraser." - John W. Gardner
Knowing is easy, understanding is hard
Suspicion is the offspring of fear. Darwin
If you don't start, you can't fail It sounds ridiculous when you say it that way. But of course, it is ridiculous. It's (quite possibly) the reason you're stalling. On the other hand, there's no doubt that, "If you don't start, you will fail. Not starting and failing lead to precisely the same outcome, with different names.
I'm not a psychpath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.
When technology is perfect and complex it is often very beautiful.
A business is only as good as its conversations.
The difference between confusion and coherence
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man” said George Bernard Shaw, an early 20th century writer and philosopher.
We kunnen de problemen niet oplossen met de denkwijze die het heeft veroorzaakt.
Bug in search of windshield
Buckminster Fuller said you can either make money or make sense. But then he made a lot of money trying the latter.
Science advances one funeral at a time [Max Planck]
Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Think about this quote for a second and ask yourself, does this quote apply to the way you run your company?
The effective truth
People don't evaluate your reasoning. They evaluate you.
If you want to persuade, sell yourself before you sell your ideas.
It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. - Aristotle
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw
NOTICE THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THIS NOTICE. YOUR NOTICING OF THIS NOTICE HAS BEEN NOTICED.
If you burn money, people call you crazy. If you burn time, they call you busy.
Stupid people are like glow sticks I want to snap them and shake the shit out of them until the light comes on
I'm the crazy uncle everyone warned you about
A less equable man than I would start to find your questions impertinent. ‘Een minder evenwichtig persoon dan ik zou uw vragen al snel onbeschaamd vinden. Ein weniger ausgeglichener Mann als ich würde Ihre Fragen als unverschämt empfinden.
The further the society drifts from the truth the more it hates those who speak it
Sometimes I sit quietly and wonder why I'm not in a mental institution. Then I look around and realize…maybe I already am
My people skills are just fine it's my tolerance to idiots that needs work.
Science doesn't care what you believe
70% Of people are stupid. I'm obviously with the other 40%.
Arguing with a fool doesn't change them; it changes you.
Talent and potential mean nothing if you can't consistently do the boring things when you don't feel like doing them.
Simple and shallow sound the same until you ask the second question. The person who earned their simplicity can go ten levels deep when challenged. The person who skipped the work falls apart at level two.
They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.
'The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. This device is inherently of no value to us.' Western Union internal memo, 1876
Too often feedback reflects the 'squeaky wheel' syndrome. (The squeaky wheel gets oiled.)
Thinking inside the a box
There is something inherently interesting about exploring a topic through the lens of these people, these outlier types, who are off the charts.
People today write a lot, they write these blogs and things, but in all that research on 10,000 hours, they talk about deliberate practice. And the thing about a newspaper is, you have an editor … who's saying 'No, this doesn't work, go back and do this.
There's a great line of Wallace Stevens: 'Sometimes you must go too far to see what would suffice.'
“People are experience rich and theory poor. My role has been to give people ways of organizing experience.”
Government If you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions.
Propaganda. What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies right to our faces.
Blogging. Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.
Customer Disservice. Because we're not satisfied until you're not satisfied.
Tradition. Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid.
Opportunity. I am Dr. Adewole Aremu- a director with the Union Bank of Nigeria in Lagos - and I wish to speak to you most urgently about a matter regarding the sum of $39,000,000 US Dollars…
Hope. May not be warranted at this point.
Sanity. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can borrow mine.
Give up. At some point, hanging in there just makes you look like an even bigger loser.
Meetings. None of us is as dumb as all of us.
Corruption. I want either less corruption or more opportunity to participate in it.
Imagine there were no hypothetical situations
God: An invisible friend for adults
Give a man a match and he'll be warm for a minute; set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't
Children in the dark cause accidents, accidents in the dark cause children
Practice makes perfect"…but no one's perfect, so why practice?
Just remember…if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
Anyone can quit smoking, it takes a real man to fight cancer
In a world full of women, you're the man!
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
He's so far in the closet he's in Narnia
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a cross. Any questions?
I dream of a better tomorrow… where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives
A religious war is like children fighting over who has the strongest imaginary friend
A man went to a zoo. The only animal was a dog. It was a shitzu.
If we're all God's children, what makes Jesus so special?
Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
You're as innocent as a nun doing press-ups in a cucumber field
I'd like to meet the person who invented sex, and see what they're working on now.
For Sale: Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica. Never read because wife already knows everything
Definition of Innocence: Nun working in condom factory thinking she's making sleeping bags for mice
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
I am going to call my kids Ctrl, Alt and Delete. Then if they muck up i will just hit them all at once.
This is almost as enthralling as a tennis match between Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder
I was going to procrastinate. But I decided to leave it till later.
I couldn't afford to buy cotton so I decided to be abrasive, and steel wool.
Duct tape is like 'the force, it has a dark side, a light side and it holds the universe together
Don't drink water - fish have sex in it
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
correlation does not equal causation
Einstein's bold contention that “the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources,”
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.
IGITUR QUI DESIDERAT PACEM, PRAEPARET BELLUM; I you want peace, prepare for war
It'll cut through the market like a thresher through a wheat field"
Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
I will not say I have failed 1000 times; I will say that I have discovered 1000 ways that can cause failure – Thomas Edison.
Pioneers get the arrows; settlers get the land
It's Not the Bullet that Kills You (It's the Hole)
And then, at some point, you realize you're spending your best energy on optimization, not on creation. While Yahoo was optimizing their home page in 2001, the guys at Google were inventing something totally new.
The age of the disappearing intellectual, a disappearance that marks with disgrace a particularly dangerous period in history. While there are plenty of talking heads spewing lies, insults and nonsense in the various media, it would be wrong to suggest that these populist are intellectuals. They are neither knowledgeable nor self-reflective.
You can't create what clients need when you're too busy saying yes to everything they want.
My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.
As my granny used to say: you don't have a dog and bark yourself. Not unless you picked the wrong dog.
Perhaps the biggest reason why he's leaving Apple is that one day everybody sat down and looked at each other and nobody could quite remember what he was doing there in the first place.
Be the kind of woman that, when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says: Oh, crap. She's up.
Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers.” – Fred Brooks
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.” — Oscar Wilde
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. - Albert Einstein
One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else.” – Lawrence Block.
Great design doesn't come from great processes; it comes from great designers.
Start with a vision [rather than a list of features] of what you want and then, one by one, remove the technical obstacles until you have it. Edwin Land
I'd rather say nothing and be thought an idiot than open my mouth and remove all doubt.
Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.” - Mignon McLaughlin
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Every revolution destroys the last thing before it turns a profit on a new thing. The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and a lot of change. What it's not doing is providing millions of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it's not going to. Fast, smart and flexible are embraced by the network. Linchpin behavior. People and companies we can't live without (because if I can live without you, I'm sure going to try if the alternative is to save money). The sad irony is that everything we do to prop up the last economy (more obedience, more compliance, cheaper yet average) gets in the way of profiting from this one.
I need you to see things way. And that's the frustration of the marketer or the artist who hasn't figured out how to navigate critics and the marketplace. If you need the validation and acceptance and patronage of everyone you meet, you'll get stuck, and soon. Everyone isn't going to get it. Everyone isn't even going to get you, never mind what you sell_._ Experienced marketers and artists and those that make change understand that the new is not for everyone. In fact, it's not even for most people. Pass them by. They can catch up later. It's not a referendum, and you don't need a unanimous vote of acclamation. No, you merely need enough to stay in business, to keep moving, to make a dent. And then your idea can spread. If the kids in the back of the bus/audience/store don't get it (or don't get you) it's their loss. Focus on those that want to celebrate the work you do instead.
If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey. A difference which makes a difference is an idea. It is a 'bit,' a unit of information. be YOURSELF, everyone else is taken
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary - Vidal Sassoon, entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't - Anonymous
The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning - to create a product or service to make the world a better place -?? Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, investor, author
Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners - Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur, investor
Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence - Lisa M. Amos
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable - Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President
Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them - Anonymous
The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities -?? Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur
An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he'll quickly learn how to chew it - Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer - Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's
Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist
Difficulty is what wakes up the genius
IN ANCIENT TIMES CATS WERE WORSHIPPED AS GODS, THEY HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN THIS.
The phrase most likely to herald a scientific discovery is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny…"
It is those niggling scientific anomalies, which seem to make no sense, that most often give rise to scientific revolutions, changing the way we think about the a topic
It's Not a Revolution if Nobody Loses
In the beginning the rules were simple; there weren't any.
good artists copy; great artists steal.
To hear critics talk, you'd think the Internet had led us into a new Dark Age.
Asking geo engineers to fix the climate is like asking an 18th century train mechanic to repair the space shuttle. Given the size of egos involved, something will be attempted anyway.
And the rest, as they say, is hysteria.
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. [Albert Einstein]
Bull's-eye every time? If so, you're standing too close to the target. If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.
F.E.A.R. has two meanings:
Forget Everything And Run
OR
Face Everything And Rise.
The choice is yours.
Nothing changes if nothing changes
When I said how stupid can you be it wasn't a challenge
You can silence fifty scholars with one fact, but you cannot silence an idiot with fifty facts.
If not now when?
I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots. Albert Einstein
Without data it's just an opinion
A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually
Thoughts aren't facts
Nice story now show me the data
Think before you speak
T~is it True?
H~is it Helpful?
I~is it Inspiring?
N~is it Necessary?
K~is it Kind?
Learning never exhausts the mind. Leonardo da Vinci
Having a role model helps. Being a role model compels.
Value experimentation over strategy
As i have grown older I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
Times I was right and nobody listened
Science doesn't care what you believe.
I need to know everything how else can I judge whether or not I need to know it so that means you need to know things even when you don't need to know them.
Conceptisimo: pack the maximum amount of meaning into the minimum amount of words. (high distillation of information)
Who are you going to believe; me or your lying eyes?
A less equable man than I would start to find your questions impertinent.
Managing to at least keep a toe on the ground despite the amount of hot air filling his head
What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can only get by practice — Theodore Roosevelt
I never argue with people who believe their own lies
What causes poverty? Nothing. It is the original state, the default and starting point. The real question is what causes prosperity?
I'm not weird, I'm limited edition
When did Noah build the ark? Before the storm.
Arschbakken zusammen und Eier eingeklemmt
People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it?
Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself — Publius Syrus
Duct tape can't fix stupid but it can muffle the sound
Focus not on words but action
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended
Feeding instinct, mating Instinct and hunting Instinct
Philosophy should teach us how to act, not how to talk
No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot - Mark Twain
What doesn't kill you mutates and tries again
ALLERGIC TO STUPID PEOPLE
Be impenetrable to social pressure and quick to adapt to evidence.
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom
If you have really high ambitions, you achieve great things even if you fail. If you have low ambitions, you achieve nothing even if you succeed.
Humans are socially monogamous, not sexually monogamous
A person can be smart but people are dumb
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done
Everybody seems normal until you get to know them (scratch normal for average)
The slaying of a beautiful hypotisis by an ungly fact - Thomas Huxley
The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. — Eleanor Roosevelt
Your life is your business so make it your business.
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. — Anaïs Nin
I tried middle of the road once; I was hit by traffic from both sides. [Harry Perkins]
MatchMinds is the place where the future comes to rehearse.
Designed by instinct
The journey is the destination
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." — Douglas Adams
The ability to learn gaster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." [Antoine de Saint Exupéry, 1939, Terre des Hommes]
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.
Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun
Mark Twain, said"Wagner´s music is better than it sounds"
Finding beauty that is more than just function
Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns
What I cannot create I do not understand
'Winning isn't Everything - it's the ONLY thing!
Einstein asked, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what is an empty desk a sign of?”|'Innovatie gaat niet over uitvinden maar toepassen'|
I find that inheritance without polymorphism is like sugar-free candy; it may be fine for some, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.|I never mind my wife having the last word. In fact, I'm delighted when she gets to it.|
You have new knowledge
Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking. - William B. Sprague
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
You must be the change you want to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. - Goethe
THE TASK IS NOT TO SEE WHAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE, BUT TO THINK WHAT HAS NEVER BEEN THOUGHT BEFORE ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE EVERYDAY." - ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER
Decision Making and Cognitive Inertia
Status Quo Bias: “When in Doubt, Do Nothing”
Most journalists are people who like to write, not people who like to know and understand things. Remember this when you read what they write.
Ask yourself at every moment, Is this necessary?" Marcus Aurelius
Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters." Cato The Elder
Twitter is terrible for arguments and great for fights
ICH BIN WIE ICH BIN Die einen kennen mich, die anderen können mich
Consensus views, which are often wrong (Abba Eban – “Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.”)
On April 14, 1912, William John Rogers sent a postcard from the Titanic to his friend James Day. “Dear Friends,” Rogers wrote, “Just a line to show that I’m alive & kicking and going grand. It’s a treat. The next day, the Titanic sank. Rogers, a third-class passenger from Wales, went down with the ship.
To weaken stereotypes, eliminate the classification
Robert Gore, “Make the Truth Irrelevant,” Straight Line Logic, October 16, 2019 Truth is always the enemy of power. Exposure of power’s motivations, depredations, and corruption never serves power’s ends. Truth is often suppressed and those who disclose it persecuted. Any illegitimate government (currently, all of them) that fails to do so risks its own termination.
Our own views, which are often subjective and self-serving than matching reality
We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own." Marcus Aurelius
People want to be told what to do so badly, that they'll listen to anyone. Don Draper. This is what the academics and experts think.
Most of the evil in this world does not come from evil people. It comes from people who consider themselves good." Reinhold Niebuhr
Too many people ask questions they could either google or answer themselves with 30 seconds of thinking.
A negative mind will never give you a positive life.
Knowing yourself makes living easier.
Perfection is impossible, so just improve for today.
The quality of the people you attract depends on the quality of your mind.
An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.” Epictetus
The traits I respect are erudition and the courage to stand up when half-men are afraid for their reputation. Any idiot can be intelligent."
A doctor is pushed by the system to transfer risk from himself to you, and from the present into the future, or from the immediate future into a more distant future."
The ultimate test of your knowledge is your capacity to transfer it to another.
Most humans manage to squander their free time, as free time makes them dysfunctional, lazy, and unmotivated. The busier they get, the more active they are at other tasks
The individual can be wiser than the crowd
A wise man learns more from his enemies than a fool from his friends
Humans learn by play, and this is not a playground book
Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.
The future is not what it used to be
A pursuit that won’t reach fruition for decades but is still completely urgent
New day, new chaos
Teaching birds how to fly
We’ll be in a better position if we can face possible threats with a calm mind, alert to our internal signals but not anticipating every possible bad thing that could happen. While being told to stop panicking never helped anyone, we benefit by understanding that being overwhelmed by fear will hurt us more. Our imaginary fears harm us more than reality ever does."
I'M NOT ARGUING I'M JUST EXPLAINING WHY I'M RIGHT
Your opinion matters not to me, but I'm sure someone somewhere cares at least a little bit
As long as everything is exactly the way I want it I'm totally flexible
A lot of problems persist because the solution is too simple to take seriously.
Consensus is the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved. - Margaret Thatcher
Just because you've caught something nasty why'd you have to wonder about breathing over it
Life is like toilet paper. You're either on a roll or you're taking shit from some asshole
Sometimes I talk to myself then we both laugh
Ich bin wie ich bin. Die einen kennen mich, die anderen können mich
You think i'm sarcastic? You should hear what i don't say!
Sitting alone and enjoying your own company is better than being surrounded by fake people.
Sometimes I sit quietly and wonder why I'm not in a mental institution. Then I look around and realize…maybe I already am.
This statement is 100% right 60% of the time
5 out out of 4 people can’t do math
Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” — Viktor Frankl
Your opinion matters not to me, but I'm sure someone somewhere cares at least a little bit
Failure of imagination
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Out of Nothing, Nothing Comes
I believe the appropriate metaphor here involves a river of excrement and a Native American water vessel without any means of propulsion.
People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise
Amusing Ourselves To Death, Onszelf dood vermaken
Perfection is the enemy of progress. Winston Churchill
The public is oppressed by their addiction to amusement (Aldous Huxley) versus oppressed by state violence (Orwell)
The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. — Roald Dahl
If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong
"A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." - Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Als u links kijkt ziet u rechts niets
A moment of temporary sanity
You can mispredict everything for all your life yet think that you will get it right next time.
Science evolves from funeral to funeral
I don't understand your specific kind of stupid, but I do admire your total commitment to it
Knowing versus Understanding
Any damned fool can criticize, but it takes a genius to design it in the first place. — Edgar Schmued
The first thing you should know about people, is that you don't know the first thing about them.
Patience and fortitude
Politics is the art of the possible - Thomas Kolbe
Productivity theater
I prefer not to think before speaking. I like being just as surprised as everyone else by what comes out of my mouth.
I was normal three cats ago
Real men build a shopping mall with a Q-tip and a pocket knife
Je moet wel intellectueel zijn om vatbaar te zijn voor zulke onzin George Orwell
If you always do what you did you will always get what you got
Everything is impossible until it is done
The three rules of engineering: (1) Always pick the right tool for the job, (2) A hammer is always the right tool, (3) Anything can be a hammer
I'm a multitasker. I can listen, ignore and forget all at the same time
I never argue with people who believe their own lies
Don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm
I need new conspiracy theories. All my old one came true
Think while it is still legal
No more wine - No, more wine
Lazy is a very strong word. I prefer to call it selective participation
Knowledge is the enemy of all religions
People say I act like I don't care. It's not an act.
Truth: the new hate speech
Try being informed not just opinionated
Atheist, proud to face reality without imaginary friends
Programming is 10% writing code and 90% understanding why it 's not working'
If the earth were flat cats would have pushed everything off already
I never argue with people who believe their own lies
My patience is basically like a gift card. Not sure how much is on it, but we can give it a try.
If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then you probably need professional help
Doing smart things with stupid technology instead of waiting for technology to get smart and do stupid things with it.
When you fall in love with the process rather than the outcome, you don't have to wait to be happy.
When you're impatient with results, every day feels expensive. When you're impatient with effort, every day feels like progress.
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
Often it's the person who goes the extra mile who comes to the right conclusion. That's grit, it's perseverance, it's determination. It's making the effort.
Complexity kills more companies than competition.
Long-term greedy, not short-term stupid.
Obsession isn’t a problem. It’s an advantage.
Controlled chaos; constant adaption, dynamic instead of strict plan (Napoleon)
Nothing in life is quite as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it (Kahneman)
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills (Arthur Schopenhauer)
When a flower doesn't bloom you fix the environment in which it grows. Not the flower.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. —ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
I’ve never seen a guillotine in action, but I imagine the sound is a low whistle before a nasty thud. The same could be said for …
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the tannhäuser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone.
The moralizing do-gooder, the self-righteous evangelist busily saving others whilst incapable of saving himself
If you aren't outraged you aren't paying attention
It is scientific fact that people who have more birthdays live longer
Don't believe everything you think
When nothing goes right … go left
Poleznyi durak: Useful idiot, one who can be used to spread propaganda without being aware of it, or subscribing to the goals intended by the manipulator - Lenin
I'm sorry I offended you by using facts ans logic
I'm only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand
Science doesn't care what you believe
It isn't 10,000 hours that creates outliers, it's 10,000 iterations.
It’s better to be a small fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond
From a logical point of view
I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you
REMINDER: Document it or it didn't happen
This is Jim. Jim minds his own business. Be like Jim
Not fragile like a flower fragile like a bomb
Which side of the cross do you want to be? We need nailers, not hangers
The dog that did not bark
It's Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away
Knowing versus Understanding - Feynman
Not even wrong Wolfgang Pauli
Never trust a thought that occurs to you indoors.
Stupid people are always certain and when they have power they become dangerous
Erudite someone who is having or showing knowledge that is gained by studying
Flooding the zone with shit (Steve Bannon)
Sycophantic: behaving or done in an obsequious (subdued) way in order to gain advantage.
The plan is not for the world, it is for your spirit
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.
You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking
If you always do what you always did then you will always get what you got
Shit or get off the pot
Little by little is better than nothing at all.
Text is precise, compact, indexable, transmissible, translatable, asynchronous & quick to absorb.
Imperfect versus gebrekkig - Imperfect versus flawed
If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed
Not things but opinion about things
It's easy to hate what you don't know
Amid Growing Evidence of Conflicts of Interest and Obdurate Groupthink in Medical Journals, Researchers Must Entertain Contrarian Ideas
Birthdays are for the bourgeoisie. get back to work.
Nice story now show me the data
I tried to be normal once. Worst two minutes of my life.
I'm sorry I offended you by using facts and logic.
I'm not always right, but I'm never wrong
Without data it's just an opinion
Every time someone disapproves of you, your brain registers it as a survival threat. Evolution wired us to believe that rejection equals death. If the tribe kicked you out, you didn't survive the winter. But the world has changed. Being disliked is necessary to live a meaningful life.
The cost of making decisions to please others instead of yourself is misery.
My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence.
Sales are an addiction; low prices are a discipline.
You can make money honestly on repeat, or you can make it deceptively once.
The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing people that he doesn't exist.
UNBEFUGTE SIND NICHT BEFUGT UNFUG ZU TREIBEN! - DER BEFUGTE
That is not only not right; it is not even wrong", or in Pauli's native German, "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!". In this model, a distinction is drawn between things that are simply wrong (e.g., due to an ordinary factual or logical error) and things that are so completely wrong that proving their errors was hopeless. Peter Woit uses the phrase "not even wrong" to mean "unfalsifiable
What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not.
We are too soon old and too late smart.
I have never seen a rich forcaster
The force of his mind overcame his every impediment
Filter bubble: companies like Google and Facebook use algorithms to keep pushing us in the directions we’re already headed - Eli Pariser
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. There is a big difference between getting experience and becoming an expert. Aldous Huxley
Things will continue roughly as they have been until something changes
Fat Tony would say, the same ting
The fact that there's a highway to hell and only a stairway to heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic numbers
Relax we're all crazy it's not a competition
In order to insult me I must first value your opinion. Nice try though
Don't confuse my personality with my attitude. My personality is who I am. My attitude depends on who you are
It is what it is
This is my notebook there are many like it but this one is mine
What doesn't kill you gives you weird coping and a twisted sense of humor
They'll fight over it when you're dead
War is too important to be left to the generals - Clemenceau
We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
Self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think.
Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.
I am a possibilist.
In the words of Mark Twain, such students have let their schooling interfere with their education.
Lotteries are a tax on stupidity
I call the flip side to the wisdom of crowds the lunacy of lemmings
Stupid meaning: someone who harms others without procuring any gain for himself or herself
The name of the game is not to always be right, but to be right often enough
Never send a human to do a machine’s job. Agent Smith in the film The Matrix
You know there is no one in the world who is as smart as you think you are.
Good errors help us to learn and to discover. A system that makes no errors will learn little and discover even less
It is enough for the others to tell lies. But between us, it must be only the truth. One lie and the clear water will become cloudy
Second-guessing is for losers.
Einstein’s remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen
A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point
Like an elephant treading on an anthill. The elephant will kill thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps millions of ants, but in the end the ants numerical superiority will win out, and they will climb up him and consume him to the bone.
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Sun Tzu
Asked people if they thought North Korea was like Red China. They said yes. He asked them if Red China was like North Korea—and they said no.
Breviary book containing the service for each day - Catholic Church
It's hard to win an argument with a smart person. It's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person. - Bill Murray
You are asking me how a watch works. For now, we just look at the time.
The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterward speaks according to his action. - Confucius
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
KLAATU BARADA NIKTO
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
The growth in available information has been exceeded only by the expansion of noise
Popular opinion warns that bad information is worse than no information at all
Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems.
It’s a mistake to worry about ‘sunk cost.’
Finding a needle in a haystack was not as hard as it sounded, if you had a thread tied to the needle.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one —Voltaire
The absence of a feature is a feature.
Outside the Church there is no salvation.
He was losing it. He had stopped believing and started thinking.
There are secrets and there are mysteries, and this is a mystery.
Truth is much too complicated to allow for anything but approximations. John von Neumann
You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. - Zig Ziglar
Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything. - Napoleon Hill
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. - Truman Capote
Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare. - Japanese Proverb
In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing. - Theodore Roosevelt
If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a chance of being a prophet. - Isaac B. Singer
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down. - Charles F. Kettering, Engineer and Inventor
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain
Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success. - Unknown
Some succeed because they are destined. Some succeed because they are determined. - Unknown
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. - Dan Stanford
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Mark Twain
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. - Mark Twain
The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed. - Richard B. Sheridan
Act or accept.
Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless. - Tim Blixseth
People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. - Norman Vincent Peale
Whenever you find whole world against you just turn around and lead the world. - Anonymous
Being defeated is only a temporary condition; giving up is what makes it permanent. - Marilyn vos Savant, Author and Advice Columnist
I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened by old ones. - John Cage
Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means. - Albert Einstein
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. - Unknown
The best way to predict the future is to create it.- Unknown
Anyone can do something when they WANT to do it. Really successful people do things when they don't want to do it. - Dr. Phil
There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. - Dr. Denis Waitley
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. - Sir Winston Churchill
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. - John Wooden
Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. - Richard Bach
Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success. - Dr. Joyce Brothers
Cause Change & Lead Accept Change & Survive Resist Change & Die - Ray Norda, Chairman, Novell
Winners lose much more often than losers. So if you keep losing but you're still trying, keep it up! You're right on track. - Matthew Keith Groves
An obstacle is often a stepping stone. - Prescott
Life is "trying things to see if they work" Ray Bradbury
If you worry about yesterday's failures, then today's successes will be few.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. Albert Einstein
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” - Elbert Hubbard
If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. - J.M. Power
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” - William James
When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'” - Sydney Harris
Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.” - Richard L. Evans
Do first things first, and second things not at all. - Peter Drucker.
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. - Winston Churchill
If you're going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill
