“I think deeply about things and want others to do likewise. I work for ideas and learn from people. I don’t like excluding people. I’m a perfectionist, but I won’t let that get in the way of publication. Except for education and entertainment, I’m not going to waste my time on things that won’t have an impact. I try to be friends with everyone, but I hate it when you don’t take me seriously. I don’t hold grudges, it’s not productive, but I learn from my experience. I want to make the world a better place.”
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“Indeed, school was so important that the mill owners quickly decided to make it mandatory. “No language of ours can convey too strongly our sense of the dangers which wait us from [those who] are not and have never been members of our public schools,” warned the Lowell School Committee. Universal schooling is “our surest safety against internal commotions.”‡”
― The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
― The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
“Growing up, I slowly had this process of realizing that all the things around me that people had told me were just the natural way things were, the way things always would be, they weren’t natural at all. They were things that could be changed, and they were things that, more importantly, were wrong and should change, and once I realized that, there was really no going back.”
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“The scary thing is that the more open our markets get, the faster people can move their money around and the more trading is based on this kind of speculation instead of serious analysis. And that’s scary because—recall—the whole point of the stock market is to decide the crucial question of what we, as a society, should build for the future. As Keynes says, “When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.”
― The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
― The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
“a piece of knowledge, unlike a piece of physical property, can be shared by large groups of people without making anybody poorer.”
― The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
― The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
Celia’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Celia’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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