William T

“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

“But things are even worse: in real life, every single bit of risk you take adds up to reduce your life expectancy. If you climb mountains and ride a motorcycle and hang around the mob and fly your own small plane and drink absinthe, and smoke cigarettes, and play parkour on Thursday night, your life expectancy is considerably reduced, although no single action will have a meaningful effect. This idea of repetition makes paranoia about some low-probability events, even that deemed “pathological,” perfectly rational.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“worms age, or even how birds learn songs—and you will end up, in fewer than six genetic steps, connecting with a proto-oncogene or tumor suppressor.”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

“Proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressors are the molecular pivots of the cell. They are the gatekeepers of cell division, and the division of cells is so central to our physiology that genes and pathways that coordinate this process intersect with nearly every other aspect of our biology. In the laboratory, we call this the six-degrees-of-separation-from-cancer rule: you can ask any biological question, no matter how seemingly distant—what makes the heart fail, or why”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer