Ankesh > Ankesh's Quotes

“You may not be able to change the outcome, but the outcome may affect things that you can change. Can a farmer change the weather? No. Should the farmer think about the weather and plan for different possibilities? He’d better, if he wants to keep on farming.”
― AMA_About_Rampart

“If you have a problem and you can’t do anything about it, why are you stressing? And if you have a problem and you can do something about it, why are you stressing?”
― Anonymous

“I realized that if a problem can be fixed, it’s not a problem. and if it can’t, it’s not my problem.”
― Anonymous

“The only thing we're allowed to believe is that we won't regret the choice we made.”
― Hajime Isayama

“The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful.”
― Hajime Isayama

“If I can’t do it. . . I’ll just die.
But if I win, I live.
If I don’t fight, I can’t win.”
― Hajime Isayama

“A good person? Well… I don’t really like that term. Because to me, it just seems to mean someone who’s good for you. And I don’t think there’s any one person who’s good for everyone.”
― Hajime Isayama

“Someone who cannot abandon everything cannot achieve anything.”
― Armin Arlet Shingeki no Kyojin

“Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“Everyone loves a conspiracy.”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“Faith ― acceptance of which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account.”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“Life is filled with secrets. You can't learn them all at once.”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“Forgiveness is God's greatest gift”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response.
The gray area between yes and no.
Silence.”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd; Mary: How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!”
― Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard

“It’s what we do now instead of bohemias,” he says. “Instead of what?” “Bohemias. Alternative subcultures. They were a crucial aspect of industrial civilization in the two previous centuries. They were where industrial civilization went to dream. A sort of unconscious R&D, exploring alternate societal strategies. Each one would have a dress code, characteristic forms of artistic expression, a substance or substances of choice, and a set of sexual values at odds with those of the culture at large. And they did, frequently, have locales with which they became associated. But they became extinct.” “Extinct?” “We started picking them before they could ripen. A certain crucial growing period was lost, as marketing evolved and the mechanisms of recommodification became quicker, more rapacious. Authentic subcultures required backwaters, and time, and there are no more backwaters. They went the way of geography in general. Autonomous zones do offer a certain insulation from the monoculture, but they seem not to lend themselves to recommodification, not in the same way. We don’t know why exactly.”
― William Gibson, All Tomorrow's Parties

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work – no man does – but I like what is in the work, - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself, not for others – what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Finally, when young people who “want to help mankind” come to me asking, “What should I do? I want to reduce poverty, save the world,” and similar noble aspirations at the macro-level, my suggestion is: 1) Never engage in virtue signaling; 2) Never engage in rent-seeking; 3) You must start a business. Put yourself on the line, start a business. Yes, take risk, and if you get rich (which is optional), spend your money generously on others. We need people to take (bounded) risks. The entire idea is to move the descendants of Homo sapiens away from the macro, away from abstract universal aims, away from the kind of social engineering that brings tail risks to society. Doing business will always help (because it brings about economic activity without large-scale risky changes in the economy); institutions (like the aid industry) may help, but they are equally likely to harm (I am being optimistic; I am certain that except for a few most do end up harming). Courage (risk taking) is the highest virtue. We need entrepreneurs.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“As a practical matter I’ve learned to seek the minimum amount of technology for myself that will create the maximum amount of choices for myself and others. The cybernetician Heinz von Foerster called this approach the Ethical Imperative, and he put it this way: “Always act to increase the number of choices.” The way we can use technologies to increase choices for others is by encouraging science, innovation, education, literacies, and pluralism. In my own experience this principle has never failed: In any game, increase your options.”
― Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants