The less a discipline resembles mathematics, the less likely a clever theory is to be true.
Mar 242014
Thinking
Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
—Whitehead
Mar 112014
If you wish to make a belief disappear, don’t waste your time demonstrating that it is an illusion. Demonstrate that it makes you fat.
Feb 242014
Credulity is fixed: doubting something obvious just clears space for believing something foolish.
Feb 212014
In every discipline the foundations come last; in most of them we still don’t know what they are.
Feb 032014
The critique is usually pertinent, the positive program disastrous.
Jan 302014
One ought to reorganize one’s opinions at least as often as one’s closets.
Jan 292014
People should do their own thinking no more than they should do their own plumbing.
Jan 172014
A thinker is understood best by his public detractors, who have the most to lose by misunderstanding him.
Jan 082014
Most people, on most matters, are not, in fact, entitled to an opinion.
Dec 262013
Common sense means you don’t know the heuristic.