A political slogan on a corporation’s website is an act of mischief; in a shopkeeper’s window it is a plea to be spared.
Jan 192021
Working
Business is more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind more continuously, and more deeply.
—Bagehot
Dec 302020
The distinguished Soviet geneticist Vavilov was unpersoned for refusing to reject heredity in favor of the neo-Lamarckism championed by Lysenko and Stalin, and I feel fortunate to live in a country where nothing like that could ever happen.
Dec 142020
Being told so much more often to Look Professional and Act Professional than Be Professional, one begins to suspect that it is in looking and acting that professionalism largely consists.
Dec 022020
A polity achieves decadence when the companies that help you make money make less money than the companies that help you spend it.
Nov 122020
A few facts about an artist’s life can, if you’re not careful, spoil his work for good.
Oct 302020
In a large organization it is impossible to act alone, and every corporate and governmental imbecility that comes to your attention has been vetted by several layers of imbeciles.
Aug 182020
Curing delusion has become, for psychiatry, a simple matter of demanding that the world see the subject as he sees himself.
Aug 172020
A proper jack-of-all-trades must have mastered one or two.
Aug 132020
Wanamaker’s Law: Half of everything is wasted or harmful, and we don’t know which half.
Jul 302020
Where mediocrity is not disqualifying it soon becomes mandatory.