The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say ‘It is our duty to remain optimists,’ this includes not only the openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we are all responsible for what the future holds in store. Thus it is our duty, not to prophesy evil but, rather, to fight for a better world. — Karl Popper, The Myth of the Framework (1994)

[...] there is every reason to conjecture that our descendants will eventually control the Sun and much more. Admittedly, we can foresee neither their technology nor their wishes. They may choose to save themselves by emigrating from the solar system, or by refrigerating the Earth, or by any number of methods, inconceivable to us, that do not involve tampering with the Sun. On the other hand, they may wish to control the Sun much sooner than would be required to prevent it from entering its red giant phase (for example to harness its energy more efficiently, or to quarry it for raw materials to construct more living space for themselves). However, the point I am making here does not depend on our being able to predict what will happen, but only on the proposition that what will happen will depend on what knowledge our descendants have, and on how they choose to apply it. Thus one cannot predict the future of the Sun without taking a position on the future of life on Earth, and in particular on the future of knowledge. The colour of the Sun ten billion years hence depends on gravity and radiation pressure, on convection and nucleosynthesis. It does not depend at all on the geology of Venus, the chemistry of Jupiter, or the pattern of craters on the Moon. But it does depend on what happens to intelligent life on the planet Earth. It depends on politics and economics and the outcomes of wars. It depends on what people do: what decisions they make, what problems they solve, what values they adopt, and on how they behave towards their children. — David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, Chapter 8: The Significance of Life

[...] in the long run there are no insuperable evils, and in the short run the only insuperable evils are parochial ones. There can be no such thing as a disease for which it is impossible to discover a cure, other than certain types of brain damage – those that have dissipated the knowledge that constitutes the patient’s personality. For a sick person is a physical object, and the task of transforming this object into the same person in good health is one that no law of physics rules out. Hence there is a way of achieving such a transformation – that is to say, a cure. It is only a matter of knowing how. If we do not, for the moment, know how to eliminate a particular evil, or we know in theory but do not yet have enough time or resources (i.e. wealth), then, even so, it is universally true that either the laws of physics forbid eliminating it in a given time with the available resources or there is a way of eliminating it in the time and with those resources. The same must hold, equally trivially, for the evil of death – that is to say, the deaths of human beings from disease or old age. This problem has a tremendous resonance in every culture – in its literature, its values, its objectives great and small. It also has an almost unmatched reputation for insolubility (except among believers in the supernatural): it is taken to be the epitome of an insuperable obstacle. But there is no rational basis for that reputation. It is absurdly parochial to read some deep significance into this particular failure, among so many, of the biosphere to support human life – or of medical science throughout the ages to cure ageing. The problem of ageing is of the same general type as that of disease. Although it is a complex problem by present-day standards, the complexity is finite and confined to a relatively narrow arena whose basic principles are already fairly well understood. Meanwhile, knowledge in the relevant fields is increasing exponentially. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity

Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. — Alan Kay

Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money. — Nat Friedman

In the interests of the quest for truth and of our liberation from errors we have to train ourselves to view our own favourite ideas just as critically as those we oppose. — Karl Popper

The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions. — Karl Popper

Enlightenment is the emancipation of man from a state of self-imposed tutelage ... of incapacity to use his own intelligence without external guidance. Such a state of tutelage I call 'self-imposed' is due, not to lack of intelligence, but to lack of courage or determination to use one's own intelligence without the help of a leader. Sapere aude! Dare to use your own intelligence! This is the battle-cry of the Enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant

[A rationalist] is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda. — Karl Popper

We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. — John Wheeler

The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite. — Werner Heisenberg

Science is most significant as one of the greatest spiritual adventures that man has yet known. — Karl Popper

Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. — A. Einstein

If I thought of a future, I dreamt of one day founding a school in which young people could learn without boredom, and would be stimulated to pose problems and discuss them; a school in which no unwanted answers to unasked questions would have to be listened to; in which one did not study for the sake of passing examinations. — Karl Popper, Unended Quest, p. 40

Hence it appears that no vice can be more destructive than that which teaches us to regard any judgment as final, and not open to review. — William Godwin

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has — from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness. — Christopher Hitchens

If the future was present approved, everyone would be doing it. — Bryan Johnson

Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean. — Charlie Munger

One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways. A society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike. — Bertrand Russell

When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve. ― Karl Popper

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. — J. S. Mill

The ultimate resource is people—skilled, spirited, and hopeful people who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit, and so, inevitably, for the benefit of us all. — Julian Simon

I think that there is only one way to science - or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part - unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children, for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days. — Karl Popper

Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with. And that's marriage, kids, work, exercise... not eating the food you want to eat. Find the torture you're comfortable with, and you'll do well. — Jerry Seinfeld

I don’t believe in being good at a lot of things—or even more than one. You want it to be all you’ve got. People are always trying to add more stuff to life. Reduce it to simpler, pure moments. That’s the golden way of living, I think. — Jerry Seinfeld

When you love something it's a bottomless pool of energy. You can't force yourself to be what you make yourself into. Love is endless, will is finite. — Jerry Seinfeld

If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life. — Jerry Seinfeld

Freedom's worst enemy is anarchy. — John Gray

Marxists are unteachable. — Karl Popper

It took some time before I recognized that [egalitarianism] as no more than a beautiful dream; that freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realize equality endangers freedom; that, if freedom is lost, there will be no equality among the unfree. — Karl Popper

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell. — Karl Popper

I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate. — Karl Popper

If our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. — Karl Popper

You don't have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time. — Charlie Munger

The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more. — Charlie Munger

I think a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time. — Charlie Munger

Climb as high as you can by advancing one inch at a time, that’s the secret of life — Charlie Munger

La civilisation commence quand tu donnes la priorité à l'autre sur toi-même. — Emmanuel Levinas

If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — Karl Popper

If you see fraud and don’t say fraud, you are a fraud. — Nassim Taleb

If you do not take risks for your opinion, you are nothing. — Nassim Taleb

The secret of intellectual excellence is the spirit of criticism; it is intellectual independence. — Karl Popper

He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them... he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form. — John Stuart Mill

Every intellectual has a very special responsibility. He has the privilege and the opportunity of studying. In return, he owes it to his fellow men (or ‘to society’) to represent the results of his study as simply, clearly and modestly as he can. — Karl Popper

You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist. — Steve Jobs

I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses. — Johannes Kepler

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. — Carl Gauss

I don't believe in the idea that there are a few peculiar people capable of understanding math, and the rest of the world is normal. Math is a human discovery, and it's no more complicated than humans can understand. I had a calculus book once that said, 'What one fool can do, another can.' What we've been able to work out about nature may look abstract and threatening to someone who hasn't studied it, but it was fools who did it, and in the next generation, all the fools will understand it. There's a tendency to pomposity in all this, to make it deep and profound. ― Richard P. Feynman

Freedom is no mere ideology but a way of life which makes life better and more worth living. — Karl Popper

To be an individualist means to see in every human individual an end in itself, and not merely a means to further other interests, for example, those of the state. — Karl Popper

Life is not a dress rehearsal — this is probably it. Make it count. Time is extremely limited and goes by fast. Do what makes you happy and fulfilled — few people get remembered hundreds of years after they die anyway. Don’t do stuff that doesn’t make you happy (this happens most often when other people want you to do something). Don’t spend time trying to maintain relationships with people you don’t like, and cut negative people out of your life. Negativity is really bad. Don’t let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do. — Sam Altman

Be guided by beauty. I really mean that. Pretty much everything I’ve done has had an aesthetic component, at least to me. Now you might think ‘well, building a company that’s trading bonds, what’s so aesthetic about that?’ But, what’s aesthetic about it is doing it right. Getting the right kind of people, and approaching the problem, and doing it right […] it’s a beautiful thing to do something right. — Jim Simons

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment. — Woody Allen

It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy, since this does not depend on us, and since it would only too often mean intruding on the privacy of those towards whom we have such amiable intentions. — Karl Popper

Francisco d’Anconia: “I saw that any man’s desire for money he could not earn was regarded as a righteous wish, but if he earned it, it was damned as greed.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I do not hesitate to proclaim this the Anthropocene era: The creation of man is the introduction of a new form of being into nature, a force previously absent from the world... This new element, more than any that previously existed anywhere, not only relates the non-living world to the living as had already happened, but, in a new and mysterious way, unifies physical principles with intellectual and moral ones. It is a force which, in its power and universality, is not inferior to any of the other great forces of nature. — Antonio Stoppani, Corso di Geologia volume 2 (passage translated by Chiara Marletto).

The difference of natural talents in different men, is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

Man, though dependent upon the body and confined to one planet, has the sun and stars as the playthings of his mind. Though finite in his mortal conditions, he is divinely infinite in his powers. — Immanuel Kant

Knowledge only progresses by making mistakes as fast as possible. — John Wheeler

A majority of life’s errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do. — Charlie Munger

We must replace the idea of destiny with the idea of responsibility; it is not fate that shapes our future, but our own rational efforts. — Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

To work is to pray. — John Singer Sargent

Even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFOs, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world. — Richard P. Feynman

Human problems are by their very nature such that we are each inherently in charge of ourselves. No authority can resolve our problems or tell us how to live. — Eugene Gendlin

We must become the makers of our fate. We must learn to do things as well as we can, and to look out for our mistakes. — Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

Take a simple idea and take it seriously. — Charlie Munger

If all cultures are equal, then cannibalism is just a matter of culinary taste. — Léo Strauss

There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. — William Faulkner

The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently. — David Graeber

The stock market, in brief: participants are calmly waiting in line to be slaughtered while thinking it is for a Broadway show. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Bed of Procrustes

We are not students of some subject matter but students of problems. — Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations)

Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots. — Umberto Eco

Many of the actions by which men have become rich are far more harmful to the community than the obscure crimes of poor men, yet they go unpunished because they do not interfere with the existing order. — Bertrand Russell

Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. They are rare, much rarer than you think. Remember that positive Black Swans have a necessary first step: you need to be exposed to them. Many people do not realize that they are getting a lucky break in life when they get it... Collect as many free nonlottery tickets (those with open-ended payoffs) as you can, and, once they start paying off, do not discard them. — Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan