Lucas Machado

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“The logic of why the powerful would not necessarily want to set up the economic institutions that promote economic success extends easily to the choice of political institutions. In an absolutist regime, some elites can wield power to set up economic institutions they prefer. Would they be interested in changing political institutions to make them more pluralistic? In general not, since this would only dilute their political power, making it more difficult, maybe impossible, for them to structure economic institutions to further their own interests. Here again we see a ready source of conflict. The people who suffer from the extractive economic institutions cannot hope for absolutist rulers to voluntarily change political institutions and redistribute power in society. The only way to change these political institutions is to force the elite to create more pluralistic institutions.”
― Daron Acemoğlu, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that’s exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands…. Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it “deliberate,” as distinct from the mindless playing of scales or hitting of tennis balls that most people engage in.”
― Cal Newport, So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love