David > David's Quotes

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few books to be read wholly, and with diligence and attraction.”
― Francis Bacon

“What does it mean to construct digital worlds while the actual world is crumbling before our eyes?”
― Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

“School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, it’s always your job to get yourself an education.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“What we respond to in any work of art is the artist’s struggle against his or her limitations.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
― Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

“Whatever your dreams are, start taking them very, very seriously.”
― Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want and Change the World

“If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of work had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.”
― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness

“The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world.”
― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness

“There was formerly a capacity for lightheartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.”
― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness

“We think too much of production, and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.”
― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness

“I headed back to university to study engineering. I started at the lowest possible level of math—algebra for people who had failed it in high school.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“It’s easy to believe that you should only concentrate on subjects that come easily for you. But my story reveals that you can do well in subjects you don’t even like. The truth is, it’s okay to follow your passions. But I also found that broadening my passions opened many wonderful opportunities. Learning new subjects I didn’t think I could do turned out to be an adventure!”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“Neuroscientists have discovered that your brain works in two different ways. We’ll call these two ways of working the focused mode and the diffuse mode.* Both modes are important in helping you to learn.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“Believe me. Until you have completed the once-in-a-lifetime event of putting your house in order, any attempt to tidy on a daily basis is doomed to failure. Conversely, once you have put your house in order, tidying will be reduced to the very simple task of putting things back where they belong. In fact, this becomes an unconscious habit. I use the term ‘special event’ because it is crucial to tackle this job within a short space of time while you are energised and excited about what you are doing.”
― Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying

“All you need to do is take the time to sit down and examine each item you own, decide whether you want to keep or discard it, and then choose where to put what you keep.”
― Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

“Diffuse mode is when we’re not focusing on anything in particular. You can enter diffuse mode by just letting go and not concentrating on anything. Going for a walk helps. Or looking out a window from a bus. Or taking a shower. Or falling asleep. (Many famous people have had great insights when the events of the day were sloshing around during sleep.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“Pulling the key idea from your own mind, instead of just reading or rereading it on the page, is the critical idea behind active recall.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“Today’s scientific research confirms what Santiago discovered. We can all “think” ourselves smarter. Learning makes us smarter. And learning how to learn is one of the best things you can do to get the ball rolling and make learning more successful”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“If you spend some time learning a particular item each day for several days, it allows you to get several periods of sleep. This gives more time for new synaptic links to grow and helps the new learning to really take hold.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“Exercise isn’t just good for every organ in your body. It’s good for your brain, too. It improves understanding, decision-making, and focusing. It assists with remembering and switching between tasks. It can also help people recover from mental illness. Some psychiatrists say that exercise is stronger than any medicine.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“This idea of focusing on the harder stuff is called deliberate practice.2 Deliberate practice is how you become an expert more quickly in whatever you are studying.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“Interleaving: Interleaving means practicing different aspects of what you are trying to learn so you understand the differences between the techniques. Chapter 4 in your algebra textbook may introduce you to one set of problem-solving techniques, while chapter 5 introduces you to a different set of problem-solving techniques. Interleaving means alternating between chapter 4– and chapter”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“We learn best when we use several different senses—hearing, seeing, and, perhaps especially, being able to feel with our hands. At deep levels in your brain, you see and hear. You see and smell. You hear and touch. When your brain creates its impressions of the world, you want as many senses involved as possible.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“It seems that your attentional octopus can be more easily distracted by loud music, and by music with words in it. The words fill one of your octopus’s arms, making it less efficient. But quieter music with no words can sometimes be helpful, depending on what you are studying.”
― Barbara Oakley, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

“I never lose, I either win or learn”
― Nelson Mandela

“My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?” and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don’t know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
― Shel Silverstein

“There are no happy endings.
Endings are the saddest part,
So just give me a happy middle
And a very happy start.”
― Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It