• “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”
  • "Self-awareness is the most attractive trait."
  • "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart."
  • "A nerd: a person who knows his own mind enough to mistrust it."
  • "Usually, what we call a 'good listener' is someone with a skillfully polished indifference."
  • "Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."
  • "The desire to control other people (always for the greater good) is the root of evil."
  • "Every exceptional person is built in solitude."
  • "Nothing human is alien to me."
  • "Charisma is the ability to project confidence and love at the same time."
  • "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence."
  • "Reasonable people can disagree."
  • "People who try to look smart by pointing out obvious exceptions actually signal the opposite."
  • "Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline.

    That word balance is a significant one. The more willful you are, the more disciplined you have to be. The stronger your will, the less anyone will be able to argue with you except yourself. And someone has to argue with you, because everyone has base impulses, and if you have more will than discipline you'll just give into them and end up on a local maximum like drug addiction."
  • "In fact the dangers of indiscipline increase with temptation. Which means, interestingly, that determination tends to erode itself. If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great things, this will probably increase the number of temptations around you. Unless you become proportionally more disciplined, willfulness will then get the upper hand, and your achievement will revert to the mean."
  • "Desparation breeds guillabliity."
  • "Sensitive comes from the Latin word sentire, to feel. So, the sensitive child feels more. So, less has to happen. If I touch you on the shoulder right now, you'd have no pain. But if your shoulder was bare with a burn on it...now what would you feel? Severe pain. And the external stimulus was the same."
  • "Genes hold culture on a leash."
  • "Human nature knows no upper bound, as if to punish itself."
  • "For most people, the most powerful motivator is not the hope of gain, but the fear of loss."
  • "Comforts, once gained, become necessities. And if enough of those comforts become necessities, you eventually peel yourself away from any kind of common feeling with the rest of humanity."
  • "All behavior makes sense with enough information."
  • “This isn’t working for me, but I do it very well.”
  • "A kind person will tell you, you have spinach in your teeth and a nice person won’t because it’s uncomfortable."