The central idea of this book concerns our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly the large deviations: Why do we, scientists or nonscientists, hotshots or regular Joes, tend to see the pennies instead of the dollars? Why do we
...more
“The ancient canyon art of Utah belongs in that same international museum without walls which makes African sculpture, Melanesian masks, and the junkyards of New Jersey equally interesting—those voices of silence which speak to us in the first world language. As for the technical competence of the artists, its measure is apparent in the fact that these pictographs and petroglyphs though exposed to the attack of wind, sand, rain, heat, cold and sunlight for centuries still survive vivid and clear. How much of the painting and sculpture being done in America today will last—in the merely physical sense—for even a half-century?”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
“To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: if he ducks he’s a liar. His logic may be airtight but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic.”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
“To have Faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
― Mere Christianity
― Mere Christianity
“So many different formulas can work that there’s no real formula. What’s important is to learn from whomever or whatever you can, at your own rate, in your own way. How or when you learn doesn’t matter, so long as the learning occurs.”
― Zen Guitar
― Zen Guitar
“Life's single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.”
― V.
― V.
Paul’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Paul’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Art, Book Club, Classics, Ebooks, Fiction, Horror, Non-fiction, Psychology, Science, Science fiction, Suspense, and Travel
Polls voted on by Paul
Lists liked by Paul



























