Thomas Merton: “As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is a resetting of a body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them. There are two things which men can do about the pain of disunion with other men. They can love or they can hate. Love, by its acceptance of the pain of reunion, begins to heal all wounds.”
It is not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed, and deprive all the oppressed of their rights. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. They are able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they are able to do that is that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. A lot of people in [the tech] industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."
Overthinking is the biggest waste of human energy. Trust yourself, make a decision, and gain more experience. There is no such thing as perfect. You cannot think your way into perfection, just take action.
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.
In the long run the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen exercising individual judgment in a free economy even if often mistaken is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster