All things considered, the simplest explanation is the correct one.
Occam’s Razor in its original Latin text –Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate–roughly translated, plurality should never be posited without necessity. Modern translation: All things considered, the simplest explanation is the correct one."The more things we value outside our control, the less control we have." - Epictetus
"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
- Attributed to Tecumseh, Shawnee leader
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. - Hanlon's Razor
“For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” - John Ioannidis
'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.'
- Heraclitus
“For the greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived, and dishonest but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” - JFK
“For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” - John Ioannidis
"A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its- Thucydides
warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by
fools."
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”
“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse” - Carlos Casteneda
“The secret of Happiness is Freedom. The secret of Freedom is Courage.”
'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.'
- Heraclitus
“For the greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived, and dishonest but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” - JFK
“If you’re not confused, you don’t understand things very well.”
-- Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger’s remark at the company’s annual meeting in 2013, commenting on the then-current state of the global economy
“Complex systems are full of interdependencies — hard to detect — and nonlinear responses. ‘Nonlinear’ means that when you double the dose of, say, a medication, or when you double the number of employees in a factory, you don’t get twice the initial effect, but rather a lot more or a lot less.” - Nassim Taleb, in Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Stages of acceptance of new theories:
1. This is worthless nonsense
2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view
3. This is true, but quite unimportant.
4. I always said so.
- J. B. S. Haldane
"It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a fool. It's all the things he does know that just ain't so." - Josh Billings
If something feels too hard to do, it just means that the first step isn’t small enough" - Becky Kennedy
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults."
"'Politics' is made up of two words, 'poli,' which is Greek for 'many,' and 'tics,' which are blood-sucking insects."
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."
"Nothing is true except from a single point of view."
"If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing."
"I like the way you always manage to state the obvious with a sense of real discovery."
- Gore Vidal
Friday’s Laws -
1. Life is difficult
2. Perception is reality
3. Change is the toughest thing a human being can do.
4. You can never change another human being; you can only change yourself. Once you change, they change, but you cannot change them.
5. I am responsible for everything I do and say. I am not responsible for your response.
6. The future and the past are seldom as good or as bad as we anticipate or remember.
7. Nobody has a squeaky-clean psyche.
8. the only thing that lasts forever is now.
"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein
"You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
"Look at the data, you can't argue with the facts. You are not entitled to your own facts." - Larry Page (in Levy's In the Plex)
"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The truth is pointless when it is shallow" - Mark Twight
"Man built most nobly when limitations were at their greatest."
— Frank Lloyd Wright
"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." - Arnold H. Glasow
"You always burn your mouth on hot pizza." - Johnno's law (John Staight)
Three bullet quotes we used in introducing any war plan in the pentagon:
“The important work of the world does not wait to be done by perfect men” - George Eliot.
“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there is an invincible summer“ Albert Camus
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish” - John Quincy Adams
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he has imagined he will meet with the success unexpected in common hours” Henry David Thoreau
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Meade
“Whether you think you can or can’t – you are right.” - Henry Ford
“Self concept is destiny” - Nathaniel Branden
"My perspicacity at circumlocution evanesced" (I forgot how to b.s.) - \
“An action not done in love has no value” Baba Amte
"Fear is your friend. Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn't do; more often it shows you what you should do. The best times I've had in my life came from asking the simple question: 'What's the worst that can happen?' " - Tim Ferris
"When the moment comes in where your entire life flashes before your eyes, make sure you have something good to watch" (unknown)
10 Stages of Inebriation:
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults."
"'Politics' is made up of two words, 'poli,' which is Greek for 'many,' and 'tics,' which are blood-sucking insects."
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."
"Nothing is true except from a single point of view."
"If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing."
"I like the way you always manage to state the obvious with a sense of real discovery."
- Gore Vidal
Friday’s Laws -
1. Life is difficult
2. Perception is reality
3. Change is the toughest thing a human being can do.
4. You can never change another human being; you can only change yourself. Once you change, they change, but you cannot change them.
5. I am responsible for everything I do and say. I am not responsible for your response.
6. The future and the past are seldom as good or as bad as we anticipate or remember.
7. Nobody has a squeaky-clean psyche.
8. the only thing that lasts forever is now.
"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein
"You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
"Look at the data, you can't argue with the facts. You are not entitled to your own facts." - Larry Page (in Levy's In the Plex)
"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The truth is pointless when it is shallow" - Mark Twight
"Man built most nobly when limitations were at their greatest."
— Frank Lloyd Wright
"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." - Arnold H. Glasow
"You always burn your mouth on hot pizza." - Johnno's law (John Staight)
Three bullet quotes we used in introducing any war plan in the pentagon:
- "In war, nothing is achieved except by calculation. Everything that is not soundly planned in its details yields no result." - Napoleon
- "No plan survives contact with the enemy." - Von Moltke
- "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." - Yogi Berra
“The important work of the world does not wait to be done by perfect men” - George Eliot.
“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there is an invincible summer“ Albert Camus
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish” - John Quincy Adams
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he has imagined he will meet with the success unexpected in common hours” Henry David Thoreau
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Meade
“Whether you think you can or can’t – you are right.” - Henry Ford
“Self concept is destiny” - Nathaniel Branden
"My perspicacity at circumlocution evanesced" (I forgot how to b.s.) - \
“An action not done in love has no value” Baba Amte
"Fear is your friend. Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn't do; more often it shows you what you should do. The best times I've had in my life came from asking the simple question: 'What's the worst that can happen?' " - Tim Ferris
"When the moment comes in where your entire life flashes before your eyes, make sure you have something good to watch" (unknown)
10 Stages of Inebriation:
1. Witty and Charming- Dan Jenkins
2. Rich and Powerful
3. Benevolent
4. Clairvoyant
5. F#@% Dinner
6. Patriotic
7. Crank up the Enola Gay
8. Witty and Charming, Part II
9. Invisible
10. Bulletproof
"Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing."
"A good physician is one who amuses his patients while nature cures the disease." - Voltaire.
"Nearly all men die of their remedies and not of their illnesses." Moliere
"If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity". Oliver Wendell Holmes.
"The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." John Gilmore in Time Dec 1993
"To err is human, but to persist is diabolical" Latin: "Errare humanum est, sed perservare diabolicum". Stoic Philosopher Seneca - circa AD 60.
"...The horseman serves the horse,
The neat-herd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind,
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind. ..." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ode to William H. Channing.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare - Hamlet.
"Bending the map" - trying to make reality conform to your expectations rather than seeing what's there.
"You live to live. Preparing is itself an activity, and action is preparation." - p260
"You're already flying upside down. You might as well turn on the smoke and have some fun." Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival ;294
From Dean Karnazes' Ultramarathon Man:
"A good physician is one who amuses his patients while nature cures the disease." - Voltaire.
"Nearly all men die of their remedies and not of their illnesses." Moliere
"If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity". Oliver Wendell Holmes.
"The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." John Gilmore in Time Dec 1993
"To err is human, but to persist is diabolical" Latin: "Errare humanum est, sed perservare diabolicum". Stoic Philosopher Seneca - circa AD 60.
"...The horseman serves the horse,
The neat-herd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind,
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind. ..." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ode to William H. Channing.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare - Hamlet.
"Bending the map" - trying to make reality conform to your expectations rather than seeing what's there.
"You live to live. Preparing is itself an activity, and action is preparation." - p260
"You're already flying upside down. You might as well turn on the smoke and have some fun." Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival ;294
From Dean Karnazes' Ultramarathon Man:
"Most dreams die a slow death. They're conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who've let their own dreams die become pessimists and cynics. They feel that the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever. "it can't be done," they'll say, when you describe your dream, "You'll never make it." p 139, in the last 5 miles of his first Western States 100 mile trail run.
"Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. I've now come to believe that the opposite is the case. Dostoyevsky had it right: "Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness." Never are my sense more engaged than when the pain sets in." p.220 - 10 hours into his first 200 mile run.
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: "WOW!! What a ride!" p. 263 the last 5 miles of his first 200 miler.
"What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." - Werner Heisenberg
"Named must your fear be before banish it you can" - Yoda
"Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer." - Niccolo Machiavelli
"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world, there is only comparison of one state to the other." - Alexandre Dumas
"The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!" - Neitzsche
Weird fact - Philip Brickman, the author of the famous lottery happiness study enthusiastically debated the 'perfect day' with his friends. The following day, Brickman committed suicide by leaping to his death in 1982 at age 38.
"50% of what we know is wrong. The problem is that we don't know which 50% it is." - Timothy Noakes.
"The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others: the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control: but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts." - Marcus Aurelius
"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." - Ornette Coleman, American jazz musician
"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons." - Alfred E. Neuman
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - Confucius
"Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also." - Carl Jung
"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present." - Calvin and Hobbes
"There is nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway." - Mark Burnett
"Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions -- the hero and the sidekick." - Laurence Shames
"Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction." - Al Bernstein
"Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness." - Richard Carlson
"Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery." - Mark Amidon
"Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting." - Edmund Burke
"The past is just the present in funny clothes." - Mike Tyson.
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" - Steven Wright
"I am convinced that life is 10% what happens and 90% how I react to it." - Charles Swindoll.
"None of us can control our emotions. We can only control our reactions to our emotions."
"Fewer choices means faster decisions."
"Block access. Protect your brain. Guard it. Remove all entry points to your brain except a single one you can control."
"Screwing up two things at once isn't the same thing as multitasking."
"Ninety-seven percent of lung cancer patients are smokers and ninety-seven percent of smokers never get lung cancer. ... Advice conflicts - the case of opposite cliches... Don't take advice."
- Neil Pasricha in The Happiness Equation.
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants." - Epictetus
"The general effect of meditation training is settling ever more gently into one's own skin, and suffering less there." - Sam Harris
"Moral narcissism is about being more concerned with the cleanliness of your own hands than with how your conduct shapes the lives around you... ... Life is messy." - Kwame Anthony Appiah in the NYT's the Ethicist column.
"Build someone a fire and they’re warm for an hour, but set someone on fire and they’re warm for the rest of their life."
“Even though economics is a very old subject, it has not
truly come to grips with the main difficulty, which is the
inordinate practical importance of a few extreme events.”
- Mandelbrot (1983)
"We'll burn the bridges after we cross them." - Ghengis Khan
Seldom the ghosts came back bearing their tales
Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,
But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Where never so many spoke for never so few:
"Named must your fear be before banish it you can" - Yoda
"Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer." - Niccolo Machiavelli
"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world, there is only comparison of one state to the other." - Alexandre Dumas
"The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!" - Neitzsche
Weird fact - Philip Brickman, the author of the famous lottery happiness study enthusiastically debated the 'perfect day' with his friends. The following day, Brickman committed suicide by leaping to his death in 1982 at age 38.
"50% of what we know is wrong. The problem is that we don't know which 50% it is." - Timothy Noakes.
"The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others: the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control: but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts." - Marcus Aurelius
"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." - Ornette Coleman, American jazz musician
"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons." - Alfred E. Neuman
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - Confucius
"Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also." - Carl Jung
"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present." - Calvin and Hobbes
"There is nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway." - Mark Burnett
"Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions -- the hero and the sidekick." - Laurence Shames
"Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction." - Al Bernstein
"Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness." - Richard Carlson
"Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery." - Mark Amidon
"Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting." - Edmund Burke
"The past is just the present in funny clothes." - Mike Tyson.
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" - Steven Wright
"I am convinced that life is 10% what happens and 90% how I react to it." - Charles Swindoll.
"None of us can control our emotions. We can only control our reactions to our emotions."
"Fewer choices means faster decisions."
"Block access. Protect your brain. Guard it. Remove all entry points to your brain except a single one you can control."
"Screwing up two things at once isn't the same thing as multitasking."
"Ninety-seven percent of lung cancer patients are smokers and ninety-seven percent of smokers never get lung cancer. ... Advice conflicts - the case of opposite cliches... Don't take advice."
- Neil Pasricha in The Happiness Equation.
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants." - Epictetus
"The general effect of meditation training is settling ever more gently into one's own skin, and suffering less there." - Sam Harris
- "In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness"
- "Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes."
- "I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning when no body calls."
- "... the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics by the noblest recorded thoughts of man?"
- "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things."
- "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
- "An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."
"Moral narcissism is about being more concerned with the cleanliness of your own hands than with how your conduct shapes the lives around you... ... Life is messy." - Kwame Anthony Appiah in the NYT's the Ethicist column.
"Build someone a fire and they’re warm for an hour, but set someone on fire and they’re warm for the rest of their life."
“Even though economics is a very old subject, it has not
truly come to grips with the main difficulty, which is the
inordinate practical importance of a few extreme events.”
- Mandelbrot (1983)
"We'll burn the bridges after we cross them." - Ghengis Khan
For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die
Who rarely bothered coming home to die
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.
Seldom the ghosts came back bearing their tales
Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,
But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the mind,
Who had no graves but only epitaphs
Where never so many spoke for never so few:
'Per ardua,' said the partisans of Mars,
'Per aspera,' to the stars.
That was the good war, the war we won.
As if there were no death, for goodness' sake,
With the help of the losers we left out there
As if there were no death, for goodness' sake,
With the help of the losers we left out there
In the air,
In the empty air.
In the empty air.
— Howard Nemerov
