Mantvizs22

“The cord that tethers ability to success is both loose and elastic. It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somehow lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that plans that succeeded were well designed, and that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation—the role of chance…What I’ve learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.”
― Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

“One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy -- is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“Tačiau, kita vertus, vargu ar reikia pabrėžti, koks pavojus tyko, taip pasidavus madai. Kyla grėsmė laisvei, kuria mes mėgaujamės. Ne policija jai grasina - ir už tai turėtume būti dėkingi, - o konformizmo spaudimas, baimė atsilikti, baimė, kad kas nors nepavadintų "senamadišku", ar neprilipdytų dar kokios panašios etiketės.”
― Gombrich Ernst H

“Don’t believe the system is a meritocracy in which ability and hard work are necessarily rewarded. Today the most important predictor of someone’s future income and wealth is the income and wealth of the family they’re born into.”
― Robert B. Reich, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It