Post date: Mar 19, 2020 4:7:59 AM
so i just stumbled onto the "quotes" page of paul graham's website.
some highlights, with italics my own edits:
""If we chose always to be wise we should rarely need to be virtuous. But inclinations which we could easily overcome irresistibly attract us. We give in to slight temptations and minimize the danger. We fall insensibly into dangerous situations, from which we could easily have safeguarded ourselves, but from which we cannot withdraw without heroic efforts which [appall] us. So finally, as we tumble into the abyss, we ask [why are we so] so feeble. But, in spite of ourselves, [we hear] through our consciences: '[we are made] too feeble to climb out of the pit, [if only because we were] strong enough not to fall in.'""
- Rousseau, Confessions, Cohen trans.
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work."
- John Gall
""[They] had nothing to learn from their [neighbours] and were incurious about them. Geographers' [accounts] tended to be cursory in the extreme: it was cold, the inhabitants were barbarians who ate [trash], you could get slaves there – that was about the sum of it."" [... and so they lost power and influence, becoming only cursory to history].
- Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain
if you have some other interesting quotes, then please share! (just be kind and uninsulting.)