Academia has a tendency, when unchecked (from lack of skin in the game), to evolve into a ritualistic self-referential publishing game.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game

In England, at least, corruption only became unfashionable (and in fact only started to be called “corruption”) when there started to be other, faster ways to get rich.

— Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters

…everything suggests that the human being is capable of consciously organising himself so as to inflict the greatest possible evil upon his neighbour…

— Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought

Legend has it that while drinking wine in a boat on the river, [8th century

Chinese poet Li Po] tried to grab the moon’s reflection on the surface and tumbled in, which is probably the poet’s equivalent of dying bravely in battle.

— Matthew White and Steven Pinker, Atrocities

…if I were suddenly to discover that my life was lived in a computer simulation, I would be in bits.

— Philosophy Now, Anja Publications