Economic theory as derived from Adam Smith assumes first that homo economicus acts with perfect optimality on complete information, and second that when many of the species homo economicus do that, their actions add up to the best possible outcome for everybody. Neither of these assumptions stands up long against the evidence.
~ Donella Meadows
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It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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When a problem threatens to engulf you, there’s nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.
~ John le Carré
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If you’ve taken a college tour lately, either as an applicant or as the parent of an applicant, you may have noticed that at some point—usually as you’re on the death march from the aquatic center to the natural-sciences complex—the tour guide will spin smartly on her heel, do the college-tour-guide thing of performatively walking backwards, and let you in on something very important. “What’s different about College X,” she’ll say confidently, “is that our professors don’t teach you what to think. They teach you how to think.”
~ Caitlin Flanagan via The Atlantic
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A little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools.
~ John Ruskin
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l paint what cannot be photographed, and l photograph what l do not wish to paint.
~ Emmanuel Radnitzky
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The dead govern the living.
~ Auguste Comte
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You can hope for lucky encounters only if you walk around a lot.
~ A. J. Liebling
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We ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science.
~ Niels Bohr
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Ending with a digression, or with an unimportant detail, is particularly to be avoided.
~ William Strunk, Jr.
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