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c305453 It certainly takes bravery to remain skeptical; it takes inordinate courage to introspect, to confront oneself, to accept one's limitations--Scientists are seeing more and more evidence that we are specifically designed by mother nature to fool ourselves. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
22aa4a2 A life saved is a statistic; a person hurt is an anecdote. Statistics are invisible; anecdotes are salient. life-saved person-hurt statistic Nassim Nicholas Taleb
df91da6 A saying by the brothers Geoff and Vince Graham summarizes the ludicrousness of scale-free political universalism. I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
6b1def0 One useful trick, I discovered, is to avoid listening to the question of the interviewer, and answer with whatever I have been thinking about recently. Remarkably, neither the interviewers nor the public notices the absence of correlation between question and answer. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ea84f20 Authors, artists, and even philosophers are much better off having a very small number of fanatics behind them than a large number of people who appreciate their work. The number of persons who dislike the work don't count--there is no such thing as the opposite of buying your book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
45643f2 I know that history is going to be dominated by an improbable event, I just don't know what that event will be. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
34a0880 The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and to him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
fc4b036 Living on our planet, today, requires a lot more imagination than we are made to have. We lack imagination and repress it in others. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ce44c47 So knowledge grows by subtraction much more than by addition--given that what we know today might turn out to be wrong but what we know to be wrong cannot turn out to be right, at least not easily. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
0ea554b Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (one of the doer-Stoic authors), "fire feeds on obstacles." Nassim Nicholas Taleb
3508b36 Clearly, an open mind is a necessity when dealing with randomness. Popper believed that any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed owing to the fact that it chokes its own refutations. The simple notion of a good model for society that cannot be left open for falsification is totalitarian. I learned from Popper, in addition to the difference between an open and a closed society, that between an open and a closed mind. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
7e51d68 Start by being nice to every person you meet. But if someone tries to exercise power over you, exercise power over him. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
99a039a Some days,' I say, 'I feel like I don't belong anywhere in that world. That world out there. 'I point to Grant. 'People walk down our street and people drive down it and people ride their bicycles down it and all of them, even the ones I know, could be from another planet. And I'm a visiting alien.' And aliens don't belong anywhere,' Adam finishes for me, 'except in their own little corners of the universe.' Ann M. Martin
fb022d5 I hoped that Mary Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and I - the Baby Sitters Club - would stay together for a long time. Ann M. Martin
a58e0ae I want her back" I said "I want HIM back"~Charlie" drama sadness Ann M. Martin
9f3182e The long-ago days - the days of Mother and Bone and the shed - have become fuzzy and have blended with images of Moon, of my travels, of other people and houses, of hiding places; a tangle of memories leading to Susan. I burrow into her side and listen to her heartbeat. With my eyes closed, I might be in the straw-filled wheelbarrow again, nestled against Mother, listening to the first heartbeat I knew. I open my eyes and tilt my head back .. Ann M. Martin
6c9afaa Small birds throw seeds out of the feeder; large birds pick them up off the ground, but the squirrels try to muscle in. Lilian Jackson Braun
314c8ed We're just people Jo he said quietly. Yeah I suppose. People with fangs who drink blood live a long time and apparently do crafts. She shook her head. nicholas Lynsay Sands
0f34f85 If you want to mess with me, you'd rather be ready for the consequences. Francine Pascal
20081fc I'm going insane. That's the only explanation for any of this. I'm going insane and the men in white coats will be showing up at any moment to tell me this has all been a psychotic delusion. They'll take me away and lock me up, and I'll be free to drool in the corner of my padded cell for the rest of my life without a care in the world. " "But then you'd never see me again," Caleb reminded her with a wink. "Really? Can I get that in writi.. Mari Mancusi
6b046af El creia conocerla. Y aun cuando no hubiera sido asi, ?acaso no era suficiente saber que era la criatura mas querida por el sobre la tierra? Y que ademas, y esto era lo mas importante, le serviria para irse de la vida alumbrandose con aquella imagen que borraria todos los demas recuerdos. Juan Rulfo
6a1f413 This town is filled with echoes. It's like they were trapped behind the walls, or beneath the cobblestones. When you walk you feel like someone's behind you, stepping in your footsteps. Juan Rulfo
70298c1 Solo yo entiendo lo lejos que esta el cielo de nosotros; pero conozco como acortar las veredas. Todo consiste en morir, Dios mediante, cuando uno quiera y no cuando El lo disponga. O, si tu quieres, forzarlo a disponer antes de tiempo. Juan Rulfo
344cff9 This world presses in on us from every side; it scatters fistfuls of our dust across the land Juan Rulfo
89aadb9 I am an agnostic on most matters of faith, but on the subject of maps I have always been a true believer. It is on the map, therefore it is, and I am. belief faith maps Tony Horwitz
f578666 You're all I see. All I hear. All I dream about. I came here for you. I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere. It's you, Gavin. Only you. gavin-blake pulse Gail McHugh
4065aac I TRUST THAT GOD WILL HELP ME, BECAUSE WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO LOOKS VERY HARD. god John Irving
bd28b71 Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb. He really was there all those years, a flesh-and-blood presence streaming off the wallpaper, digging up the dogwoods, polishing the finials... smelling of sawdust and sweat and designer cologne. But I ached as if he were already gone. Alison Bechdel
ee8041e Again, the troubling gap between word and meaning. My feeble language skills could not bear the weight of such a laden experience. Alison Bechdel
ad78a77 One begins to wonder if all the most interesting problems in physics are now in biology. Nick Lane
bfcf159 Nothing is more conservative than a bacterium. evolution life Nick Lane
27f3298 The Maya collapsed because they overshot the carrying capacity of their environment. They exhausted their resource base, began to die of starvation and thirst, and fled their cities en masse, leaving them as silent warnings of the perils of ecological hubris. Charles C. Mann
b488a96 An educated mind is nothing but the God-given mind of a child after his parents' and his grandparents' generation have got through molding it. We can't help teaching you; you will ask that of us; but we are prone to teach you what we know, and I am going, now and again, to warn you: Remember we really don't know anything. Keep your baby eyes (which are the eyes of genius) on what we don't know. That is your playground, bare and graveled, sa.. personal-growth risk-taking Lincoln Steffens
7e3ecb1 There is a light that shines in the darkness, which is only visible there. light Barbara Brown Taylor
fa99413 E. B. White once wrote, "I can't decide whether to enjoy the world or improve the world; that makes it difficult to plan the day." Barbara Brown Taylor
90bb6e6 a priest is someone willing to stand between a God and a people who are longing for one another's love, turning back and forth between them with no hope of tending either as well as each deserves. To be a priest is to serve a God who never stops calling people to do more justice and love more mercy, and simultaneously to serve people who nine times out of ten are just looking for a safe place to rest. To be a priest is to know that things a.. Barbara Brown Taylor
1ecb3da I had arrived at an understanding of faith that had far more to do with trust than with certainty. I trusted God to be God even if I could not say who God was for sure. I trusted God to sustain the world although I could not say for sure how that happened. I trusted God to hold me and those I loved, in life and in death, without giving me one shred of conclusive evidence that it was so. Barbara Brown Taylor
4e59dfa Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God's name. Sometimes it comes as an extended human hand and sometimes as a bolt from the blue, but either way it opens a door in what looked for all the world like a wall. This is the way of life, and God alone knows how it works. Barbara Brown Taylor
f6f0bd0 The White House, that whole criminal mob, those arrogant goons who see themselves as justified to operate above the law-they disgrace democracy by claiming that what they do they do for democracy! They should be in jail. They should be in Hollywood! John Irving
a1dc8f4 Love was certainly not safe - not ever. John Irving
51ef488 I am too rich already, for my eyes mint gold. - beauty-in-nature eyes gold riches wealth Mervyn Peake
1933dc2 And there shall be a flame-green daybreak soon. And love itself will cry for insurrection! For tomorrow is also a day - and Titus has entered his stronghold. Mervyn Peake
929c9bc Throughout my career, I have discovered and rediscovered a simple truth.It is this: the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the Brian Tracy
3298d5c This is a wonderful time to be alive. There have never been more possibilities and opportunities for you to achieve more of your goals than exist today. Brian Tracy