Category: Philosophy
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“It is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.” – Sherlock Holmes, from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes short story, The Man with the Twisted Lip. While I’ve always been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories, since reading the DK Big Ideas Book about Sherlock Holmes, I’ve gained new…
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“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius Accepting and cherishing your own individuality is the most important thing in leading a good life. The greatest…
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“Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey, legendary baseball general manager Branch Rickey is most famous for being the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to become a regular player in Major League Baseball. In baseball circles, though, he’s perhaps even more famous for inventing what…
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“You know my method. It is founded on the observation of trifles.” – Sherlock Holmes in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of all time, full stop. I shouldn’t have to argue the genius of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character. It’s probably not much of a surprise for as much…
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“Failure is always an option.” – Adam Savage of MythBusters Is it better to fail miserably and be forgotten, or to fail gloriously and make history? Would it be better to fail in obscurity and fade away into irrelevance? Or, should we seek to fail spectacularly in public view so that others may partake in…
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“One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” – Nikola Tesla Have you ever caught yourself overthinking? Who hasn’t? It’s exhausting and often unproductive. Overthinking can make you feel like you’re running a mental marathon in quicksand. Yet, whenever we find ourselves facing a conundrum, we often…
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“The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.” – Paul Valery, French poet and essayist. We human beings like to know things. Oftentimes, we believe we know more about a…
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Incompleteness has been written about extensively in fields such as mathematics and philosophy. Sadly, it isn’t at all frequently discussed when it comes to volumes of complete works. A collection of complete works is supposed to be a group or set of literary, musical, artistic, or academic works created by a single author. Yet, one…
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What is “intellectualism?” It’s described as “the exercise of the intellect at the expense of emotions.” In other words, it’s where you convince yourself you’re smarter than everyone else by ignoring your feelings. I mean, who needs those pesky things when you’ve got facts and figures to throw around at cocktail parties? For the philosophers…
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This is a response to a particularly thought-provoking newsletter from one of my favorite Substack writers. It’s part of her 28-day Writer’s Notebook challenge to find joy in writing again. This particular post from Collected Rejections gave me pause. Valorie Clark discusses the word “inevitability,” its roots, and the conclusion she comes to is that…