Justin > Justin's Quotes

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“We are terrible at seeking evidence that challenges our own beliefs, but other people do us this favor, just as we are good at finding errors in other people’s beliefs.”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“Our education might stop, if we so choose. Our brains’ never does. The brain will keep reacting to how we decide to use it. The difference is not whether or not we learn, but what and how we learn.”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“Ask your brain to do math every day, and it gets better at math. Ask your brain to worry, and it gets better at worrying. Ask your brain to concentrate, and it gets better at concentrating. Not”
― Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

“A helpful exercise is to describe the situation from the beginning, either out loud or in writing, as if to a stranger who isn’t aware of any of the specifics—much like Holmes talks his theories through out loud to Watson. When Holmes states his observations in this way, gaps and inconsistencies that weren’t apparent before come to the surface.”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“Whatever the situation, answering the question of what, specifically, you want to accomplish will put you well on your way to knowing how to maximize your limited attentional resources. It will help direct your mind, prime it, so to speak, with the goals and thoughts that are actually important—and help put those that aren’t into the background.”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“poker, or a business meeting from a gesture. If you learn first how to be selective accurately, in order to accomplish precisely what it is you want to accomplish, you will be able to limit the damage that System Watson can do by preemptively teaching it to not muck it up. The important thing is the proper, selective training—the presence of mind—coupled with the desire and the motivation to master your thought process.”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“your answer to the “what I want to accomplish” question must be flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. If the available information changes, so should you. Don’t be afraid to deviate from a preset plan when it serves the greater objective”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“After World War II, physicist Richard Feynman was asked to serve on the State Curriculum Commission, to choose high school science textbooks for California. To his consternation, the texts appeared to leave students more confused than enlightened. Each book he examined was worse than the one prior. Finally, he came upon a promising beginning: a series of pictures, of a windup toy, an automobile, and a boy on a bicycle. Under each was a question: “What makes it go?” At last, he thought, something that was going to explain the basic science, starting with the fundamentals of mechanics (the toy), chemistry (the car), and biology (the boy). Alas, his elation was short lived. Where he thought to finally see explanation, real understanding, he found instead four words: “Energy makes it go.” But what was that? Why did it make it go? How did it make it go? These questions weren’t ever acknowledged, never mind answered. As Feynman put it, “That doesn’t mean anything. . . . It’s just a word!” Instead, he argued, “What they should have done is to look at the windup toy, see that there are springs inside, learn about springs, learn about wheels, and never mind ‘energy.’ Later on, when the children know something about how the toy actually works, they can discuss the more general principles of energy.”
― Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value.”
― Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

“Positivity is far more than a mental preference. It changes your brain, literally, and it changes the people around you. It’s the nearest thing we have to magic.”
― Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

“Another huge advantage of learning as much as you can in different fields is that the more concepts you understand, the easier it is to learn new ones. Imagine explaining to an extraterrestrial visitor the concept of a horse. It would take some time. If the next thing you tried to explain were the concept of a zebra, the conversation would be shorter. You would simply point out that a zebra is a lot like a horse but with black and white strips. Everything you learn becomes a shortcut for understanding something else.”
― Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
― William Shakespear, Hamlet

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“The method you employ to achieve success is a secret because it can be discovered only by you analyzing your own decisions. This is what my questioners should really have been asking me about instead of my trivial habits: How did I push myself? What questions did I ask myself? How did I investigate and understand my strengths and weaknesses? And how did I use what I learned to get better and further define and hone my method?”
― Garry Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom

“With words one man can make another blessed, or drive him to despair;”
― Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

“The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but about the process of reaching the outcome.”
― Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

“The best computer programmers are much better than novices at remembering the overall structure of programs because they understand better what they’re intended to do and how.”
― Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

“looking without seeing,”
― Christopher Chabris, The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us