The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
~ Anton Chekhov
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Author Archives: Jasper John MacKay
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There are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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It is true that when pride releases energies and serves as a spur to achievement, it can lead to a reconciliation with the self and the attainment of genuine self-esteem.
~ Eric Hoffer
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You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.
~ Caspar David Friedrich
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A university isn’t a state—it can’t simply impose its rules with force. It’s a special kind of community whose legitimacy depends on mutual recognition in a spirit of reason, openness, and tolerance. At the heart of this spirit is free speech, which means more than just chanting, but free speech can’t thrive in an atmosphere of constant harassment.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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We experience the externalities of the attention economy in little drips, so we tend to describe them with words of mild bemusement like “annoying” or “distracting.” But this is a grave misreading of their nature. In the short term, distractions can keep us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, they can accumulate and keep us from living the lives we want to live.
~ Jenny Odell
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The most fruitful areas for the growth of the sciences were those which had been neglected as a no-man’s land between the various established fields.
~ Norbert Wiener
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The Romans, foreseeing troubles, dealt with them at once, and, even to avoid a war, would not let them come to a head, for they knew that war is not to be avoided, but is only put off to the advantage of others.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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You can see the future best through peripheral vision.
~ Nicholas Negroponte
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