Meaning is a fundamental human desire. We crave beautifully written poetry because we enjoy the richness of its meaning. We thirst for meaningful work, if not meaningful lives. We long to connect meaningfully with people. Seeking meaning is a natural expression of living life fully…

— Francis Su, Mathematics for Human Flourishing

Rational elites . . . know everything there is to know about their self-contained technical or scientific worlds, but lack a broader perspective. They range from Marxist cadres to Jesuits, from Harvard MBAs to army staff officers. . . . They have a common underlying concern: how to get their particular system to function. Meanwhile . . . civilization becomes increasingly directionless and incomprehensible.

— John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s Bastards

Say what you will about religion, but the best adherents to it are those who make the effort to understand what they believe, beyond just believing what they are told.

— Clean Agile, Robert C. Martin

I need different names for the thingies that determine my predictions and the thingy that determines my experimental results. I call the former thingies ‘belief,’ and the latter thingy ‘reality.’

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

We discover truth only when we are free to explore alternative ideas. We think well only when people are free to give us feedback. We develop the virtues of tolerance and open-mindedness only when we are free to hear disagreeable ideas. We develop humility when our ideas are tested in a free public arena, while self-confidence arises from those ideas that survive these tests.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now