Quotes

  • “People think of education as something that they can finish.”

    • -Isaac Asimov

  • “Nullius in Verba” (Take nobody’s word for it)

    • -Motto of the Royal Society of London

  • “Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes.”

    • -Patrick Nielson Hayden

  • "Wait, Professor... If Sisyphus had to roll the boulder up the hill over and over forever, why didn't he just program robots to roll it for him, and then spend all his time wallowing in hedonism?"

    • "It's a metaphor for the human struggle."

    "I don't see how that changes my point."

    -SMBC

  • “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool”

    • -Richard Feynman

  • “I only want power so I can get books”

    • -HJPEV

  • “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”

    • -Winnie the Pooh

  • “Ultima Ratio Regum” (The final argument of kings.)

    • -Inscription of French cannons by order of Louis XIV

  • “I spent my childhood believing I was destined to be a hero in some far off magic kingdom. It was too late when I realized that I was needed here.”

    • -A Softer World

  • “It’s funny. When you look at somebody through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”

    • - Wanda from Bojack Horseman.

  • “You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.”

    • -Eliezer Yudkowsky

  • “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”

    • -Philip Dick

  • “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made”

    • - Otto von Bismarck, first German Chancellor.

  • “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That’s funny….”

    • -Isaac Asimov

  • “Luck” is useless as a strategy and “Hard work” is mostly useless. Prefer “Discover rules then systematically exploit them.”

    • -patio11

  • “People who talk incessantly about “change” are often dogmatically set in their ways. They want to change other people.”

    • -Thomas Sowell

  • “Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes to them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.”

    • -Eliezer Yudkowsky

  • “Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”

    • - Loui Hector Berloiz

  • “What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”

    • -Adolph Hitler

  • “Rules are there to make you think hard before you break them”

    • -Lu-tze,Thief of Time, Discworld

  • Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler’

    • -Isaac Asimov

  • “Giving a person a high IQ is kind of like giving a person a million dollars. A few individuals will do something interesting with it, but most will piss it away on trinkets and pointless exercises.”

    • -J. Andrew Rogers

  • “The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor, he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”

    • -George Shaw, Nobel Laureate

  • When confronting something which may be either a windmill or an evil giant, what question should you be asking?

    • There are some who ask, "If we do nothing, and that is an evil giant, can we afford to be wrong?" These people consider themselves to be brave and vigilant.

    Some ask "If we attack it wrongly, can we afford to pay to replace a windmill?" These people consider themselves cautious and pragmatic.

    Still others ask, "With the cost of being wrong so high in either case, shouldn't we always definitively answer the 'windmill vs. giant' question before we act?" And those people consider themselves objective and wise.

    But only a tiny few will ask, "Isn't the fact that we're giving equal consideration to the existence of evil giants and windmills a warning sign of insanity in ourselves?"

    It's hard to find out what these people consider themselves, because they never get invited to parties.

    - PartiallyClips, "Windmill"

  • "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?"

    • "Oh jeez. Probably."

    “What!? Why!?"

    "Because all my friends did. Think about it -- which scenario is more likely: every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time... ...or the bridge is on fire?"

    -Randall Munroe

  • "Finally, a study that backs up everything I've always said about confirmation bias."

    • -Kslane

  • You are not the king of your brain. You are the creepy guy standing next to the king going "a most judicious choice, sire".

    • - Steven Kaas

  • It’s nice to elect the right people, but that’s not the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.

    • - Milton Friedman

  • “A bet is a tax on Bullshit”

    • -Alex Tabarrok

  • I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.

    • -Evil Overlord List #230

  • He uses statistics as a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support, not for illumination.

    • -G.K. Chesterton