“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
― The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
― The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
“Where there is no initiation, there is the autodidact. Anyone for whom knowledge is not wisdom transmitted through experience is enrolled in a university that is a correspondence course.”
― The Ruin of Kasch
― The Ruin of Kasch
“many of us have been convinced that we carry the darkness within us, in our selfish genes. “It is simply human nature,” we’re told, “to rape and kill and enslave—and anyone who thinks otherwise is a foolish romantic.” This messaging not only offends our decency and dignity, it insults our intelligence. The depiction of human nature embedded in the NPP isn’t science; it’s a marketing campaign for the status quo.”
― Civilized to Death: What Was Lost on the Way to Modernity
― Civilized to Death: What Was Lost on the Way to Modernity
“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.”
― The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
― The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Ivan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ivan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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