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suffered from the democratic fallacy: the notion that her opinion was as good as anyone’s—while
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Only a sadistic scoundrel—or a fool—tells the bald truth on social occasions.
Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic; this doubles your effective lifetime—and thereby gives time to enjoy butterflies and kittens and rainbows.
Beware of the “Black Swan” fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you—with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the “Gigo Law,” i.e., “Garbage in, garbage out.” Inductive logic is much more difficult—but can produce new truths.
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament—it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can’t avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
how much variety can there be in the slippery friction of mucous membranes?
There was no gratitude between nations, never had been, never would be.
