Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Daniel Levitin has more insights per page than any other neuroscientist I know. The organized Mind is smart, important, and, as always, exquisitely written.
Economists are behavioural psychologists, but they think more is better; they want to make everyone richer. They should pause. More's not necessarily better
We are playing Russian roulette with features of the planet’s atmosphere that will profoundly impact generations to come. How long are we willing to gamble?
The strange flavour of AI work is that people try to put together long sets of rules in strict formalisms which tell inflexible machines how to be flexible.
If there is a single theme that dominates all my writings, all my obsessions, it is that of memory-because I fear forgetfulness as much as hatred and death.
Americans, [John Adams] wrote in 1780, believed that their "revolution is as much for the benefit of the generality of Mankind in Europe, as for their own."
After his great awakening, the Buddha continued to meditate and to devote himself to others; otherwise his vision would have receded into a pleasant memory.
Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history.
Planet Earth, creation, the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shorelines, is in imminent peril.
Presidential biography is, by its nature, out of scale; no character is bigger, no action greater, than the person and the doings of the American president.
The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.
I make photographs and still make photographs of the natural environment. It's a love because that was part of my life before I was involved in photography.
Perhaps the most "spiritual" thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.
It's quite astonishing how much money people make in the hedge fund business and in the private equity field, and how well-off affluent families really are.
In my view, the critical questions in this era of mass incarceration are: What disturbs us? What seems contrary to expectation? Who do we really care about?
If we had improved materials that could be produced cheaply and in large quantities, certainly the thermoelectrics industry could move forward more quickly.
All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.
Almost nobody believes anymore that infants are insensate blobs. It seems both mad and evil to deny experience and feeling to a laughing, gurgling creature.
We'd be really screwed if we had to start our life over again as children with our brains right now, because I think we lose the plasticity and flexibility.
Moral stupidity comes in two different forms: relativism and legalism. Relativism sees no principles, only people; legalism sees no people, only principles.
Our judgements of good and evil ... presuppose God as the standard. If there's no God, there's neither good nor evil. There's just nature doing what it does
Private property is a necessary institution, at least in a fallen world; men work more and dispute less when goods are private than when they are in common.
As a consequence while we had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes to wear to school we were constantly conscious of being of modest means.
The selfie, like all technology, causes us to reflect on our human values. This is a good thing because it challenges us to figure out what they really are.
It turns out that the process of working toward a goal, participating in a valued and challenging activity, is as important to well-being as its attainment.
It is only in the depths of crisis and despair that the fear of losing one's personality breeds millennial hopes of rescue: otherwise, complacency prevails.
It's quite fashionable to say that the educational system is broken. It's not broken. It's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore.
The main activity of programming is not the origination of new independent programs, but in the integration, modification, and explanation of existing ones.
After my stellar first grade academic achievements, I continued to perform well in the city primary schools - except for penmanship, which was not my forte.
I have resisted the term sociolinguistics for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.
In the eyes of many people, giving doesn't count unless it's completely selfless. In reality, though, giving isn't sustainable when it's completely selfless.
Some people don't need parental commitment, they will still come out great, but for others, parents can be critical in providing moral and academic guidance.
The autobiographical self is built on the basis of past memories and memories of the plans that we have made; it's the lived past and the anticipated future.
Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option - legend.
Women who love women, who choose women to nurture and support and to create a living environment in which to work creatively and independently, are lesbians.
That's what's provocative to me - that we can victimize people, we can torture and traumatize people with no consciousness that it is a shameful thing to do.
Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly 3 percent. The effect is highly significant.
There is abundant reason to believe that optimism - big, little, and in between - is useful to a person because positive expectations can be self-fulfilling.
What you should do is wait until the end of each month, and then say, "OK, how much money do I have? How much do I need? Let me send the rest to retirement."
We are over 60 percent water by weight. We're just a big ball of... blob of water, with enough organic thickener added so we don't dribble away on the floor.
Where the daughter sees power, the mother feels powerless. Daughters and mothers, I found, both overestimate the other's power - and underestimate their own.
Man is a wanting animal - as soon as one of his needs is satisfied, another appears in its place. This process is unending. It continues from birth to death.
The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.
I've worked with five Presidents in America, all of them I ask the same question always: Why didn't the American allies bomb the railways going to Auschwitz?
We should take good care of the domestic animals we have brought into existence until they die. We should stop bringing more domestic animals into existence.
Beyond 2050 the world population may start to decrease if women across the world will have, on average, less than 2 children. But that decrease will be slow.
It is always the task of the intellectual to "think otherwise." This is not just a perverse idiosyncrasy. It is an absolutely essential feature of a society.
...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.
You are either in the Word and the Word is conforming you to the image of Jesus Christ, or you are in the world and the world is squeezing you into its mold.
Never do anything for a student that he he is capable of doing for himself. If you do you, you'll make him an educational cripple...a pedagogical paraplegic.