Brian Christian Quotes
Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of course, and I don't quibble with them in the slightest. But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish.
Brian Christian
Quotes to Explore
Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.
Aristotle
Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle in itself, is able to obey such a principle. And we call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.
Aristotle
In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law to Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expressed an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order. The still more remarkable fact is that this evolutionary drive to greater and greater order also is irreversible. Evolution does not go backward.
J. H. Rush
One is punished best for one's virtues.
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is a distinction to have many virtues, but a hard lot.
Friedrich Nietzsche
As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.
Natalia Ginzburg
Right at the start, when I was about 13 or 14, I only had an Amiga 500 Plus running a bit of tracker software called OctaMED. My brother was big into his computers, and when he moved up to a proper PC, I took charge of the Amiga.
Calvin Harris
There is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won't make the crooked straight.
Seneca the Younger
I call God ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Office) . It's much more satisfying to call it that. A lot of people accept this and they don't know that they're just talking about God. I finally found a God that was big enough. As the astronomer said to the Minister, My God's astronomical. The Minister said, How can you relate to something so big? The astronomer said, Well, that isn't the problem, your God's too small!
John Lilly
The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.
William Butler Yeats
Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of course, and I don't quibble with them in the slightest. But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish.
Brian Christian