apply in all areas of life : invest in long-term

"The secret of wealth is buying once for all. When we buy, we should buy a thing which will last; buy something good even though it costs considerably more than a similar article which is perishable. Real economy consists of building a house that will last for generations, buying furni*ture that will last a lifetime, selecting clothing that is good for more than a fleeting season, choos*ing carpets that can be used by our children's children and then, having bought these good things, economy demands that we take care of them." Leigh Everett

Autodidacticism

Mary Wollstonecraft - I remember reading her essays in my room when I lived in Toronto, and thinking, 'Wow, women can actually think and write. They really do have brains! I thought it was just a lie we'd silently accepted to keep the peace!'

Limits of Language

"The entire sum of existence is the magic of being
needed by just one other person."
-Vi Putnam

...since social relationships are always ambiguous,
since my thought is only a unit, since my thoughts
create rifts as much as they unite, since my words
establish contacts by being spoken and create
isolation by remaining unspoken, since an immense moat
separates the subjective certitude that I have for
myself from the objective reality that I represent to
others, since I never stop finding myself guilty even
though I feel I am innocent....
… We could say that the limits of language are the
limits of the world… that the limits of my language
are the limits of my world. And in that respect,
whatever I say must limit the world, must make it
finite.
"Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen
meiner Welt"
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

Idealism, by Osho

THERE are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like
idealism -- it is the most poisonous of all poisons.
Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills
you in such a way that you never become aware of it.
It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are
very cunning. Rarely a person becomes aware that he
has been committing suicide through it. Once you
become aware, you become religious.
Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not
believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of
the impossibility of idealism -- of all idealism.
Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on
conditioning your mind to live somewhere else. And
only the now exists. There is no other way to live.
The only way is to be here. You cannot be there. The
tomorrow is non-existent, it never comes, and idealism
believes in the tomorrow. It sacrifices the today at
the altar of the tomorrow. It goes on saying to you,
'Do something -- improve yourself. Do something --
change yourself. Do something -- become perfect.' It
appeals to the ego.
Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals
to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are;
in fact you should be more perfect than you are. But
each moment is perfect, and it cannot be more perfect
than it is.
To understand this is the beginning of a new life, is
the beginning of life.

The straight track

The Horrors of Public Education

I like William James.

"James considered pragmatism to be both a method for analyzing philosophic problems and a theory of truth. He also saw it as an extension of the empiricist attitude in that it turned away from abstract theory and fixed or absolute principles and toward concrete facts, actions, and relative principles. James considered philosophies to be expressions of personal temperament and developed a correlation between "tough-minded" and "tender-minded" temperaments and empiricist and rationalist positions in philosophy. Theories, he felt, are "instruments" that humans use to solve problems and should be judged in terms of their "cash value" or practical consequences for human conduct."

"The test of a theory, belief, doctrine, must be its effect upon us, its practical consequences -- the pragmatic test: whatever works is true. The possession of truth is not an in itself but a preliminary means to vital satisfaction. Knowledge is an instrument for the sake of life, existing as practical utility. True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. Truth is not, therefore, useful because it is true; it is true because it is useful."

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
-- George Bernard Shaw

"What you risk reveals what you value."
-- Jeanette Winterson

The sons of Hermes love to play,
And only do their best when they
Are told they oughtn't;
Apollo's children never shrink
From boring jobs but have to think
Their work important.

- W. H. Auden, Under Which Lyre

Daniel Gilbert

Check out this guy's blog.

Daniel Gilbert.