Both scientist and conqueror began by admitting ignorance – they both said, ‘I don’t know what’s out there.’ They both felt compelled to go out and make new discoveries. And they both hoped the new knowledge thus acquired would make them masters of the world.

— Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

The problem can be avoided up front by intervening in such a way as to strengthen the ability of the system to shoulder its own burdens. This option, helping the system to help itself, can be much cheaper and easier than taking over and running the system—something liberal politicians don’t seem to understand. The secret is to begin not with a heroic takeover, but with a series of questions.

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

…say how impressed you are with how it was organized and ask for a round of applause for the organizer. This will ensure that whoever organized this event gets stuck with the next one, too, so that you don’t have to deal with it.

— Sarah Cooper, 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings

for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do, either

— Plato, The Apology

Back in the seventies, Herbert Simon, the Nobel-winning economist, took these inchoate sentiments and explained them rigorously: “What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

— Franklin Foer, World Without Mind