Brit Cheung

“The brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. Because it is the last to mature, by definition the frontal cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortex from genes.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

“All human societies contain inventive people. It’s just that some environments provide more starting materials, and more favorable conditions for utilizing inventions, than do other environments.”
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel

“I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“In our age of connection, every one of us is a node. We sit on that tense, stretched surface between center and periphery. When we say Connection changes the nature of an object, this is the exact balance we have to contemplate.”
― Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks