Quotes
Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.
p. 60
Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.
p. 30
The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today’s employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss.
p. 26
The best test of whether someone is extremely stupid (or extremely wise) is whether financial and political news makes sense to him.
p. 87
Read nothing from the past one hundred years; eat no fruits from the past one thousand years; drink nothing from the past four thousand years (just wine and water); but talk to no ordinary man over forty.
p. 25
Don't cross a river if it is four feet deep on average.
p. 161
A philosopher is someone who says, "We know it's possible in practice; we're trying to work out if it's possible in principle!"
If I were designing a phony religion, I'd surely include a version of this little gem — but I'd have a hard time saying it with a straight face:If anybody ever raises questions of objections about our religion that you cannot answer, that person is almost certainly Satan. In fact, the more reasonable the person is, the more eager to engage you in open-minded and congenial discussion, the more sure you can be that you're talking to Satan in disguise! Turn away! Do not listen! It's a trap!What is particularly cute about this trick is that it is a perfect "wild card," so lacking in content that any sect or creed or conspiracy can use it effectively. Communist cells can be warned that any criticism they encounter is almost sure to be the work of FBI infiltrators in disguise, and radical feminist discussion groups can squelch any unanswerable criticism by declaring it to be phallocentric propaganda being unwittingly spread by a brainwashed dupe of the evil patriarchy, and so forth. This all-purpose loyalty-enforcer is paranoia in a pill, sure to keep the critics muted if not silent.Did anyone invent this brilliant adaptation, or is it a wild meme that domesticated itself by attaching itself to whatever memes were competing for hosts in its neighborhood? Nobody knows, but now it is available for anybody to use — although, if this book has any success, its virulence should diminish as people begin to recognize it for what it is.
Experience teaches...that there is no such thing as a thought experiment so clearly presented that no philosopher can misinterpret it...
There is a familiar trio of reactions by scientists to a purportedly radical hypothesis: (a) "You must be out of your mind!", (b) "What else is new? Everybody knows that!", and, later — if the hypothesis is still standing — (c) "Hmm. You *might* be on to something!" Sometimes these phases take years to unfold, one after another, but I have seen all three emerge in near synchrony in the course of a half-hour's heated discussion following a conference paper.
It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight.
He did his best to interest the girl in himself—that is to say, his work—and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear interested in, what behind his back, she called "Mr. Wressley's Wajahs"; for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one little thing about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have married on that sort of error before now.
