Everything – Page 3 – A book of aphorisms
Aug 312023
 

“I’m not concerned about short-term fluctuations”: I have lost some money
“I’m in this for the long haul”: I am determined to lose a lot of money

Aug 302023
 

“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”
“Market failure.”

Aug 292023
 

Every accomplished torturer serves a long apprenticeship, beginning on insects, proceeding, if he shows sufficient relish, to small animals, and only then moving up to human beings.

Aug 282023
 

I can no longer read of an academic conference without thinking of the scene in Love and Death when Woody Allen and Diane Keaton bring their village idiot to a village idiots’ convention, where they are greeted by a huge banner reading WELCOME IDIOTS.

Aug 242023
 

A surprisingly common tactic of philosophers is to solve their problem by denying that it exists: thus Parmenides on change, Berkeley on the external world, Dennett on qualia, or Rand on conflicts of interest. It works, if what you want is less correctness than renown.

Aug 232023
 

The last one to leave won’t have to turn out the lights: the power will have failed long since.

Aug 222023
 

We would all be incomparably better-educated if we had read the same books in the right order.

Aug 182023
 

The sole sacred duty of the critic is not to praise where praise is not due.