Makes You Think
A few lines I came across recently that got me thinking:
“It is far easier to figure out if something is fragile than to predict the occurrence of an event that may harm it.” – Nassim Taleb
“Survival is the ultimate performance measure.” – Vicki TenHaken
“Everything feels unprecedented when you haven’t engaged with history.” – Kelly Hayes
“My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.” – Naval Ravikant
“I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.” – Jack Benny accepting a Emmy
“Half the distinguishing qualities of the eminent are actually disadvantages.” – Paul Graham
“It is difficult to remove by logic an idea not placed there by logic in the first place.” – Gordon Livingston
“The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” - Richard Powers
“Comforts, once gained, become necessities. And if enough of those comforts become necessities, you eventually peel yourself away from any kind of common feeling with the rest of humanity.” – Sebastian Junger
“Technology finds most of its uses after it has been invented, rather than being invented to meet a foreseen need.” – Jared Diamond
“All behavior makes sense with enough information.” – My brother in law, a social worker
“It’s very common to be utterly brilliant and still think you’re way smarter than you actually are.” – Munger
“Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.” – Sebastian Junger
“Psychology is a theory of human behavior. Philosophy is an ideal of human behavior. History is a record of human behavior.” – Will Durant
“No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.” – Ian Wilson
“If something looks irrational – and has been so for a long time – odds are you have a wrong definition of rationality.” – Taleb
“If you want these crazy ideas and these crazy stages, this crazy music, and this crazy way of thinking, there’s a chance it might come from a crazy person.” - Kanye West
“I want to live in a way that if my life played out 1,000 times, Naval is successful 999 times. He’s not a billionaire, but he does pretty well each time. He may not have nailed life in every regard, but he sets up systems so he’s failed in very few places.” – Naval
“Young brains are designed to explore; old brains are designed to exploit.” – Alison Gopnik
“I learned early that people will admire your work more if they are not jealous of you.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Show me a man who thinks he’s objective and I’ll show you a man who’s deceiving himself.” – Henry Luce
“History as usually written is quite different from history as usually lived. The historian records the exceptional because it is interesting.” – Will Durant
“The cure for imposter syndrome is to realize that all the other people are just convincing imposters, too.” – Alison Gopnik
“Everyone encourages you to grow up to the point where you can discount your own bad moods. Few encourage you to continue to the point where you can discount society’s bad moods.” – Paul Graham
“I am not an optimist. I’m a very serious possibilist.” - Hans Rosling
“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” -Twain
“The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.” – Amos Tversky
“The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.” – Niall Ferguson
“If you can get your work life to where you enjoy half of it, that is amazing. Very few people ever achieve that.” - Bezos
“Risk means more things can happen than will happen.” - Elroy Dimson
Gall’s Law: “A complex system that works invariably evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.”
“Some things have to be believed to be seen.” —Ralph Hodgson
“No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.” – David McCullough
“It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.” —Richard Cavett
“The most surprising thing I found about business was the large concern for finance and low concern for service.” – Henry Ford
“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.” – Twain