Alok Singh

“Asked some years later how he (Abel) had managed to forge ahead so rapidly to the front rank he replied, “By studying the masters, not their pupils”- a prescription some popular writers of textbooks might do well to mention in their prefaces as an antidote to the poisonous mediocrity of their uninspired pedagogics.”
― Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics

“Personally, I always feel that survival is cheap at any price and it puzzles me that so many men in authority don’t seem to see it that way.”
― K.J. Parker, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It

“Like an open book

I long to tell you the story of my whole life.
I want to show you my innermost like an open book so that you can read it.
Anything that you want.

I want to be perceivable and … that you can perceive me.
I want to be comprehensible, like a mathematical formula you can solve, even if I cannot solve myself.

I long for you to solve me. I long for you to read me like an open book.
Anything that you want.

[…]

I long for you to tell me the story of your whole life.
I want you to show your innermost like an open book, so that I can read it.
Anything that I want.
I want to make you perceivable and … that I can perceive you.

I want to make you comprehensible, like a mathematical formula I can solve, even if you cannot solve yourself.

I long for us to be solvable. That we show each other our innermost, like an open book.
Anything that we have ever wanted.”
― Dahi Tamara Koch, Within the event horizon: poetry & prose

“Our conscious mind tries hard to preserve the illusion that it deliberately chose every action you have ever taken; in reality, in many of these decisions it was a bystander at best, and much of the time it did not even notice the decision being made.”
― Rory Sutherland, Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life