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Matt Fowler

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Matt’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (81)
currently-reading‎ (0)

read‎ (497)
foriegn-language‎ (1)

historial-fiction‎ (1)

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Matt’s Notes & Highlights

Book cover for Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

9 highlights

A secret to being more revered than resented, he learned, was to display (at least when he could muster the discipline) a self-deprecating humor, unpretentious demeanor, and unaggressive style in conversation.9

Matt’s Quotes

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi

tags: change, cleverness, misattributed, self, wisdom, world

6273 likes

“The standard explanation of the madness of crowds is ignorance: a mediocre education system has left the populace scientifically illiterate, at the mercy of their cognitive biases, and thus defenseless against airhead celebrities, cable-news gladiators, and other corruptions from popular culture.”
― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

31 likes

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Great Speeches / Abraham Lincoln: with Historical Notes by John Grafton

tags: american-presidents, inaugural-address, us-presidents

806 likes

“As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Letters

307 likes