If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves. … There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

— Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…

Guy Finley said, “The limit of your present understanding is not the limit of your possibilities”.

— Vijay Raghunathan and Santanu Deb Barma, Digital Twin

Buridan’s donkey, the morose donkey who was stuck between two bales of hay and starved to death as a result of indecision and analysis.

— Peter Hollins, Mental Models

Experiments have shown that when people hear about a new policy, such as welfare reform, they will like it if it is proposed by their own party and hate it if it is proposed by the other—all the while convinced that they are reacting to it on its objective merits.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

Whenever you pass a beggar and feel a compassionate impulse, find a poor person who seems to be laboring industriously and give them the money instead. Distributing a copper to every citizen of the country without discrimination would also be fine. The damage isn’t from giving charity, but from requiring people to appear as beggars to receive it.

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, Dark Lord’s Answer