A belief in Critical Thinking
Humans generally achieve better outcomes when they avoid judging situations by their outward appearances, and instead look beneath the surfaces to search out objective facts and engage in reasoned analysis.
Quotations
“Belief in Impossible Things”
There is probably no job on earth for which an ability to believe six impossible things before breakfast is more of a requirement than software project management. We are routinely expected to work ourselves into a state of believing in a deadline, a budget, or a performance factor that time subsequently may prove to be impossible.
Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, from the book Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects, 2003, © Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
“Belief is the end of Observation”
What you do is you have an idea, and you hold it in your mind as long as it’s useful. And then when it turns out not to be useful, discard it. But the idea of clinging to belief as a basis for your life – which is what most people do – is terrifying, because belief is the end of observation. You believe something, you stop seeing everything else. Clearly, that is not desirable. And yet it’s the way most people live.
Milton Glaser, from the interview “Design is Not Appearance: My Interview with Milton Glaser”, 27 Jun 2020
“Be more curious about ideas”
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
Marie Curie, 1937
“Capitalism as a Market Society”
Readers may be surprised by the absence of any mention of ‘capital’ or ‘capitalism’ in the book. I chose to leave out such words not because there is anything wrong with them but because, loaded as they are with heavy baggage, they get in the way of illuminating the essence of things. So, instead of speaking about capitalism, I use the term ‘market society.’ Instead of ‘capital,’ you will find more normal words like ‘machinery’ and ‘produced means of production.’ Why use jargon if we can avoid it?
Yanis Varoufakis, from the book Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works -- and How It Fails, 08 May 2018
“The Celestial Teapot”
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatics to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
Bertrand Russell, from the essay “Is There A God?”, 1952
“The Columbia Disaster”
Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space and a member of the investigating board, believes that the Columbia tragedy and the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle disaster resulted from the same mindset, saying: ‘(NASA) managers…did not grab onto this problem and insist on an answer. It was really quite the opposite. They assumed they knew the answer. They assumed the foam was not going to be a problem. And they were insisting that people disprove the preconception they had.’
Dennis Stauffer, from the book Thinking Clockwise: A Field Guide for the Innovative Leader, 2005, © Dennis Stauffer
“Confusion leads to understanding”
I’m trying to confuse peoples’ initial perceptions. Confusion leads to exploration, exploration to learning, and learning to understanding.
Vishavjit Singh, from the interview “A Shield as a Weapon Against Intolerance”, 12 Sep 2018, © Town Hall Seattle
“Conventional Views”
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
“Cost of Education”
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
“Critical Thinking Followed by Action”
Interviewer: What’s the most important meditation we can do now?
Dalai Lama: Critical thinking, followed by action. Discern what your world is. Know the plot, the scenario of this human drama. And then figure out where your talents might fit in to make a better world.
Dalai Lama, from the film I Am
“The Cult of Ignorance”
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’
Isaac Asimov, from the story “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction”, 1975
“A Dark Procession”
Mercer did not think at all in the accepted sense of the word. Ideas occurred to him and engendered other ideas. But the process which linked any two of them was a dark procession taking place in some subconscious part of the brain.
Margery Allingham, from the book Dancers in Mourning, 1934, © Doubleday and Company, Inc.
“The Discomfort of Thought”
As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality.
For the great 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 clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy, from the speech “Commencement Address at Yale University”, 1962
“Easy Solutions”
There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible and wrong.
H. L. Mencken, from Prejudices: Second Series, 1920
“Education demands a certain daring”
Education demands a certain daring, a certain independence of mind. We have to teach young people to think. And to teach young people, in order to teach young people to think, you have to teach them to think about everything. There mustn’t be something they cannot think about. If there’s something, if there’s one thing they can’t think about, then very shortly they can’t think about anything, you know. Now, there’s always something in this country, of course, one cannot think about.
James Baldwin, from the interview “1961 Studs Terkel Interview with James Baldwin”, 1961
“Entertain a Thought”
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
“ESPN president meets Steve Jobs”
The story goes that ESPN president George Bodenheimer attended the first Disney board meeting in Orlando, Florida, just after the company had bought Pixar, the innovative animation factory, and spotted Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a hallway. It seemed like a good time to introduce himself. “I am George Bodenheimer,” he said to Jobs. “I run ESPN.” Jobs just looked at him and said nothing other than “Your phone is the dumbest fucking idea I have ever heard,” then turned and walked away.
Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller, from Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, 2011
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1975
“The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance”
The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened…. There is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness.
Albert Camus, from the book The Plague, 1947
“Exponential growth in a finite world”
Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
Kenneth Boulding, from Congressional Hearings on Energy Reorganization Act of 1973, 1973
“Facts are Facts”
Facts are facts; they are ascertainable through honest, open-minded and diligent reporting; truth is attainable by laying fact upon fact, much like the construction of a cathedral; and truth is not merely in the eye of the beholder.
Peter Kann, from the article “Time Magazine”, Feb 18, 2017
“A First-Rate Intelligence”
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Crack-Up, 1936
“The Four-Fold Way”
The following four principles, each based on an archetype, comprise what I call the Four-Fold Way:
Show up, or choose to be present. Being present allows us to access the human resources of power, presence, and communication. This is the way of the Warrior.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Paying attention opens us to the human resources of love, gratitude, acknowledgment, and validation. This is the way of the Healer.
Tell the truth without blame or judgment. Nonjudgmental truthfulness maintains our authenticity, and develops our inner vision and intuition. This is the way of the Visionary.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome. Openness and nonattachment help us to recover the human resources of wisdom and objectivity. This is the way of the Teacher.
Angeles Arrien, from the book The Four-Fold Way, 1993, © Angeles Arrien
“Fuzzy Concept”
There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.
“Gradually and then suddenly”
‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked.
‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’
Ernest Hemingway, from the book The Sun Also Rises, 1926
“Great minds discuss ideas”
Great minds discuss ideas, average ones discuss events, and small minds discuss people.
“Hard Discipline of Reasonableness and Honesty”
The great thing to remember is that the mind of man cannot be enlightened permanently by merely teaching him to reject some particular set of superstitions. There is an infinite supply of other superstitions always at hand; and the mind that desires such things, that is, the mind that has not trained itself to the hard discipline of reasonableness and honesty, will, as soon as its devils are cast out, proceed to fill itself with their relations.
Gilbert Murray, from the book Five Stages of Greek Religion
“Intellectual Debate”
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
“Learning from Experience”
The most powerful learning comes from direct experience. But what happens when we can no longer observe the consequences of our actions? Herein lies the core learning dilemma that confronts organizations: we learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions. The most critical decisions made in organizations have systemwide consequences that stretch over years or decades.
Peter Senge, from the book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, 1990, © Peter M. Senge.
“Men Fear Thought”
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin – more even than death…. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
“Merely a Muddle”
“And your remarks on the text,” Mr. Gott declared, “are merely a muddle.”
“Yes, Gott,” said Mike meekly.
“You see, Mike, you haven’t any brain really.”
“No, of course not,” said Mike.
“You must just keep to the cackle and write nicely. You write very nicely.”
“Yes,” said Mike, dubiously.
“Keep off thinking things out, and you’ll do well. In fact, you’ll go far.”
Michael Innes, from the book The Seven Suspects, 1936, © John Innes Mackintosh Stewart
“Model II Decision-Making”
Model II encourages the individual to maximize his uniqueness. If, in doing so, he should arrive at goals that differ from those developed by others, he will have done so under conditions of openness, trust and risk-taking. The individual would therefore feel free to discuss his differences openly with the group. Moreover, if the individual is in a subordinate power position, and if he feels he had adequate opportunity to dissuade the group and that the group publicly confronted and tested all differences, then the individual will probably be motivated to work toward the group goal but still be motivated to generate new information that may change the group’s decision. This means that one can be externally committed to a decision and internally committed to the decision-making processes that produced the decision yet simultaneously monitor the consequences of the decision thoroughly to seek new, valid information to reconfront the decision without being considered disloyal. In the model-II world, conflicts do not disappear–indeed, the illusion of conflict disappearing is more typical of the model-I world, in which conflicts are settled by power plays based on sanctions, charisma or loyalty.
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön, from the book Theory in Practice: Increasing Personal Effectiveness, 1974, © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
“Model II Values”
Clearly, Model II touches on values that are central to social life and to the traditions of moral philosophy: freedom of choice, truth and testability, the nature of commitment, the possibilities for and limitations on openness in communication among individuals, the basis for trust and cooperation among human beings, the sources of long-term personal effectiveness.
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön, from the book Theory in Practice: Increasing Personal Effectiveness, 1974, © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
“Most advertising an insane irrelevance”
It is often said that our society is too materialist, and that advertising reflects this…. But it seems to me that in this respect our society is quite evidently not materialist enough, and that this, paradoxically, is the result of a failure in social meaning, values and ideals…. If we were sensibly materialist, in that part of our living in which we use things, we should find most advertising to be of an insane irrelevance. Beer would be enough for us, without the additional promise that in drinking it we show ourselves to be manly, young in heart, or neighborly. A washing-machine would be a useful machine to wash clothes, rather than an indication that we are forward-looking or an object of envy to our neighbors.
Raymond Williams, from the essay “New Left Review”, 1961, © New Left Review Ltd
“Muddled thinking and self-deception”
Mr. Campion was shocked. There are some people to whom muddled thinking and self-deception are the two most unforgivable crimes in the world.
Margery Allingham, from the novel The Fashion in Shrouds, 1938
“The Myth of Simple Truths”
It would be a wonderful world were the Simple Truth Thesis true. Our political task simply would be to empower those who know the simple truth, and rebuke the fools who do not. But the Simple Truth Thesis is not true. In fact, it’s a fairytale—soothing, but ultimately unfit for a serious mind. For any Big Question, there are several defensible positions; it is precisely this feature that makes them big. Of course, to say that a position is defensible is not to say that it’s true. To oppose the Simple Truth Thesis is not to embrace relativism (which is itself a version of the Simple Truth view), nor is it to give up on the idea that there is truth; it is rather to give up on the view that the truth is always simple.
Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse, from The Myth of Simple Truths, 2016-01-04
“Nirvana Antipattern”
The typical, and primary, root cause of [the Nirvana] AntiPattern is the misguided notion that conflict is bad, and therefore should be avoided at all costs. In reality, conflict in the form of tension … is a necessary part of any difficult task that involves intelligent people who care about their work.
William J. Brown, Hays W. McCormick III and Scott W. Thomas, from the book AntiPatterns and Patterns in Software Configuration Management, 1999, © William J. Brown, Hays W. Skip McCormick III, Scott W. Thomas
“No Perfect Answer”
The higher up you go in politics – but I think this is true of any organization – the more you will be confronted with challenges, problems, issues that do not yield a perfect answer.
Barack Obama, from the interview “Dare to Lead podcast”, 7 Dec 2020, © Brené Brown Education and Research Group, LLC
“Occasions When the Intellect Retires Gracefully”
There are occasions when the intellect retires gracefully from a situation entirely behind its decorous control and leaves all the other complicated machinery of the mind to muddle through on its own.
Margery Allingham, from the book Dancers In Mourning, 1934, © Doubleday and Company, Inc.
“The Other Side of Complexity”
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
“People are happy to give away their most valuable asset”
At present, people are happy to give away their most valuable asset – their personal data – in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. It’s a bit like African and Native American tribes who unwittingly sold entire countries to European imperialists in exchange for colorful beads and cheap trinkets.
Yuval Noah Harari, from the book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, 2018, © Yuval Noah Harari
“The point of modern propaganda”
The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.
Garry Kasparov, from Twitter, 12/13/2016
“Politics and the Debasement of Language”
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.
George Orwell, from the essay “Politics and the English Language”
“The press is so powerful in its image-making role”
The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
Malcolm X, from the speech “Malcolm X Speech at the Audobon Ballroom in Harlem”, 13 Dec 1964
“Public Truth”
Reviving the common good also depends on each of us taking responsibility for finding, sharing, and insisting upon public truth. By public truth I mean facts about what is happening around us that could affect our well-being, as well as clear logic about the significance of those facts and reasoned analysis about their practical consequences.
Robert B. Reich, from the book The Common Good, 2018, © Robert B. Reich
“Pursue not happiness, but discernment”
It finally came to me from Jimmy [Baldwin], who was so good at setting me straight. Happiness, he told me, is a very typical pursuit of the spoiled, who have, for the most part, had things brought to their tables, their attention, their inspection. I needed to pursue not happiness, he told me, but discernment.
“You understand,“ he said to me, ”the ability and the art of editing a film. You can transform a performance by what you clip or elide or move. A stunningly bad actor or performance can be transformed by how and where you place it. It has been edited, and so it is not an honest—or realistic—presentation of what took place.
“Well, we don’t understand reality too well. We think that what is placed before us is real, because we are either lazy or stupid — we don’t look around for what else is out there or within us or within each other, so we say, This is real. But if we remove the negative friend, the toxic thought, the temptations that topple us, then a new ‘reality’ appears. We get the reality we build, edit, post, print, distribute.
“Don’t accept the evil thought, the prejudiced view, the pessimistic view of the world. Accept a role in making the world better, and go out and edit it." That is what Jimmy always sought to do: Edit the world; edit his friends; edit himself.
Marlon Brando, from Marlon Brando Interview with James Grissom, 1990
“Rationality is not the strong suit of our species”
My recommendations are not the typical tips from an academic about how to encourage more rational decisions. I think that rationality is not the strong suit of our species. We are Homo tributus, not Homo economicus. Certainly, tribal instincts are part of the problem in many pressing conflicts, but they also can be — and, I think, have to be — part of the solution.
Michael Morris, from the book Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, 2024, © Michael Morris
“Reversible vs. Irreversible Decisions”
Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before. We can call these Type 1 decisions. But most decisions aren’t like that – they are changeable, reversible – they’re two-way doors. If you’ve made a suboptimal Type 2 decision, you don’t have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through. Type 2 decisions can and should be made quickly by high judgment individuals or small groups.
As organizations get larger, there seems to be a tendency to use the heavy-weight Type 1 decision-making process on most decisions, including many Type 2 decisions. The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished invention. We’ll have to figure out how to fight that tendency.
Jeff Bezos, from the letter “Amazon Letter to Shareholders”, 1999
“Seeing the Bigger Picture from Multiple Angles”
He [Jeff Bezos] said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy – encouraged, even – to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.
He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.
What trait signified someone who was wrong a lot of the time? Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view. If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time.
Jeff Bezos and Jason Fried, from the interview “Signal vs. Noise”, Sep 21, 2015
“Seeking ways to disagree with myself”
It has allowed me to return to a long-lost self who once wrote in peace and quiet … doing what I have always loved: finding ways to disagree with myself in order to discover what my true thoughts are.
Yanis Varoufakis, from the book Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works -- and How It Fails, 08 May 2018
“Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast”
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Lewis Carroll, from the book Through the Looking Glass, 1871
“Skepticism and Openness”
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble.
Some ideas are better than others. The machinery for distinguishing them is an essential tool in dealing with the world and especially in dealing with the future. And it is precisely the mix of these two modes of thought that is central to the success of science.
Carl Sagan, from the essay “The Burden of Skepticism”, 1987
“Successful Planning”
The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps.
Dashiell Hammett, from the book The Dain Curse, 1957, © Dashiell Hammett
“Symbolic Language”
At the moment, the most powerful marker, the feature that distinguishes our species most decisively from closely related species, appears to be symbolic language. Many animals can communicate with each other and share information in rudimentary ways. But humans are the only creatures who can communicate using symbolic language: a system of arbitrary symbols that can be linked by formal grammars to create a nearly limitless variety of precise utterances. Symbolic language greatly enhanced the precision of human communication and the range of ideas that humans can exchange. Symbolic language allowed people for the first time to talk about entities that were not immediately present (including experiences and events in the past and future) as well as entities whose existence was not certain (such as souls, demons, and dreams).
David Christian, from the book This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity, 2008
“Taking a Fence Down”
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away. To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
G. K. Chesterton, from the book The Thing, 1929
“Ten Commandments for Teachers”
Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
“Terrible with raisins in it”
This wasn’t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.
“Thinking's a Dizzy Business”
Nobody thinks clearly, no matter what they pretend. Thinking’s a dizzy business, a matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can and fitting them together the best you can. That’s why people hang on so tight to their beliefs and opinions; because, compared to the haphazard way in which they’re arrived at, even the goofiest opinion seems wonderfully clear, sane and self-evident. And if you let it get away from you, then you’ve got to dive back into that foggy muddle to wrangle yourself out another to take its place.
Dashiell Hammett, from the book The Dain Curse, 1957, © Dashiell Hammett
“Thinking should be generous and have a good appetite”
Thinking should be generous and have a good appetite. I find life far too valuable these days to shut out most of its variety in favour of digging down into the depths….
Sarah Bakewell, from the book At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails, 2016, © 2016
“This faith in consciousness”
We are ambivalent, combative, stubborn, wildly changeable beings that have the natural schizophrenic facility to love and hate at the same time. We respond, with Pavlovian predictability, to invisible forces such as the economic infrastructure, ever-changing technology, and unconscious instincts, all the while believing that we are fully conscious beings making decisions based on logic arisen from observations informed by eternal truths. This faith in consciousness is, in the mildest language possible, misplaced.
Walter Mosley, from the book Folding the Red Into the Black: Developing a Viable Untopia for Human Survival in the 21st Century, 2016, © Walter Mosley
“Those Sharp, Scratchy, Harsh, Almost Unpleasant Guys”
I never hesitated to promote someone I didn’t like. The comfortable assistant, the nice guy you like to go on fishing trips with, is a great pitfall. Instead I looked for those sharp, scratchy, harsh, almost unpleasant guys who see and tell you about things as they really are. If you can get enough of them around you and have patience enough to hear them out, there is no limit to where you can go.
“To differentiate truth from falsehood”
It is the civic responsibility of all of us to check the facts we read or hear, to find and depend upon reliable sources, to share the truth with others, and hold accountable those who lie to us or suppress the truth.
We must also ensure that every American has sufficient education to differentiate truth from falsehood, and to think critically about what they read and see.
Robert B. Reich, from the book The Common Good, 2018, © Robert B. Reich
“To prolong our presence on the face of the Earth”
What we’re doing now is trying to think like nature, in the sense that we are aware that species that have gone before us have disappeared from the face of the Earth. We’d like to use our intelligence and our creative capacity to prolong our presence on the face of the Earth as long as possible. It requires, therefore, that we develop the kinds of tactics and strategies amongst ourselves so as to assure that this can occur, to assure that we will not destroy ourselves or the planet, to make it uninhabitable and to allow the fullness of the potential of the individual to be expressed, to flower.
Jonas Salk, from with Bill Moyers, 1990
“Torturing the Data”
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.
Darrell Huff, from the book How to Lie With Statistics, 1954
“The Underlying Principle of the Problem”
When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don’t really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it’s really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s sort of the middle, and that’s where most people stop…. But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem – and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works. That’s what we wanted to do with Mac.
Steve Jobs, from the book Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything, 2000
“Unintelligible Propositions”
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them….
“Until you make the unconscious conscious”
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.
Carl Jung, 1951
“Violent Opposition from Mediocre Minds”
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein, from to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, 19 March 1940
“We are Doing our Best”
It’s no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
“We are what we pretend to be”
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
Kurt Vonnegut, from the book Mother Night, 1961
“We don't even own suits”
When an AT&T rep suggested Jobs wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s CEO, the deputy replied, “We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”
Apple, from the article “The Oft Unhappy Marriage of Apple and AT&T”, July 19, 2010, © Mansueto Ventures
“We have wonderful arguments”
Jobs: What I do all day is meet with teams of people and work on ideas and solve problems to make new products, to make new marketing programs, whatever it is.
Mossberg: And are people willing to tell you you’re wrong?
Jobs: (laughs) Yeah.
Mossberg: I mean, other than snarky journalists, I mean people that work for…
Jobs: Oh, yeah, no we have wonderful arguments.
Mossberg: And do you win them all?
Jobs: Oh no I wish I did. No, you see you can’t. If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to, you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win, otherwise good people don’t stay.
Mossberg: But you must be more than a facilitator who runs meetings. You obviously contribute your own ideas.
Jobs: I contribute ideas, sure. Why would I be there if I didn’t?
Steve Jobs, from D8 Conference, 06/07/2010
“We Must Respect the Other Fellow's Religion”
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
H. L. Mencken, from the book Minority Report : H.L. Mencken”s Notebooks, 1956
“When his salary depends on his not understanding it”
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair, from the book I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked, 1935
“Where the Puck is Going to Be”
There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.
Steve Jobs, from the speech “Macworld Keynote”, 2007