Arturo Serrano > Arturo's Quotes

“Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are. In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be “This book is worthless”, while the truth about the reviewer’s own reaction would probably be “This book does not interest me in any way, and I would not write about it unless I were paid to.”
― George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

“To be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors. To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Rationality: From AI to Zombies

“Il est certains esprits dont les sombres pensées
Sont d’un nuage épais toujours embarrassées ;
Le jour de la raison ne le saurait percer.
Avant donc que d’écrire, apprenez à penser.
Selon que notre idée est plus ou moins obscure,
L’expression la suit, ou moins nette, ou plus pure.
Ce que l’on conçoit bien s’énonce clairement,
Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.”
― Nicolas Boileau, L'Art Poétique

“a Philosopher could not grasp the modern idea of progress ... until he was willing to abandon ancestor worship, until he analyzed away his inferiority complex toward the past, and realized that his own generation was superior to any yet known”
― Carl Becker, Progress and Power

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“the rapid progress true Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon”
― Benjamin Franklin

“There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky.

But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

“Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky

“Human sensibility is our only channel to the universe. If the capacity of that channel can be increased, knowledge of the universe will expand accordingly.”
― George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things

“Truth never seems obvious until it is known.”
― David Myers