Which - Quotes
We do not change ourselves, precisely - because we have only ourselves with which to do the changing - but we continually influence, and are influenced by, the world around us and the world within us.
Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
The older golfer can hit the ball as far as the young one. He chips and putts equally well. And will probably have a better knowledge of the course. So why does he take the extra stroke that denies him victory? Experience. He knows the downside, what happens if it goes wrong, which makes him more cautious. The young player is either ignorant or reckless to caution. That is his edge. It is the same with all of us. Knowledge makes us play safe. The secret is to stay childish.
There is a conventional or popular point of view. There is a personal point of view. There is a large point of view which the majority share. There is a small point of view which just a few share. But there is no right point of view. You are always right. You are always wrong. It just depends from which pole you are looked at. Advances in any field are built upon people with the small or personal point of view.
People are like sheep: they follow the leader, It is the leader who has a point of view about which way they should go. Having an original point of view or angle is a novelty. Recognising its value is intelligent. Having the courage to stand up for it in tlie face of public opinion is what makes you a winner.
Maturity (...) is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
The common people, on the whole, are still living in the world of absolute good and evil from which the intellectuals have long since escaped.
It`s a mistake to think that in hard choices, one alternative really is better than the other, but we`re too stupid to know which, and since we don`t know which, we might as well take the least risky option. Even taking two alternatives side by side with full information, a choice can still be hard. Hard choices are hard not because of us or our ignorance; they`re hard because there is no best option.
One of the most important gifts we can give our children is the confidence to say "I don`t know." It`s the foundation from which we begin our investigation of the world: asking questions, taking the necessary time to understand the answers, and searching for new answers when the ones we have in hand don`t seem to work. The feeling of not knowing is also the source of wonder and awe.
You have to see lots of ways of living in order to choose the best life for yourself. This is what the best cities do: They cultivate a vibrant array of cultures and allow their citizens to find their way to the neighborhoods and traditions in which they're most at home.
In a small town or an apartment building with paper-thin walls, what I know about you is roughly the same as what you know about me. That's a basis for a social contract, in which we'll deliberately ignore some of what we know. The new privacyless world does away with that contract. I can know a lot about you without your knowing I know.
Discovery often means simply the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habit.
The manner in which some of the most important individual discoveries were arrived at reminds one more of a sleepwalker's performance than an electronic brain's.
Our bodies are programmed to consume fat and sugars because they're rare in nature... In the same way, we're biologically programmed to be attentive to things that stimulate: content that is gross, violent, or sexual and that gossip which is humiliating, embarrassing, or offensive. If we're not careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity. We'll find ourselves consuming content that is least beneficial for ourselves or society as a whole. Just as the factory farming system that produces and delivers our food shapes what we eat, the dynamics of our media shape what information we consume.