SPINOZA "By good I mean that which we certainly know to be useful to us. By evil I mean that which we certainly know to be a hindrance to us in the attainment of any good"- Ethics p.119

THIEL "Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian 'prime movers' who claim to be independent of everybody around them"- Zero to One p.189

IBN SINA "To acquire the first principles of a deductive science without inferring them from more basic premises one can use two methods: the ancient Aristotelian method of induction, and the method of examination and experimentation. The induction method does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide"- Book of Healing p.3

NAGEL "What is the faculty that enable us to escape from the world of appearance presented by our prereflective innate dispositions, into the world of objective reality? And what, besides consciousness, do we have to add to the biological story to make sense of such a faculty?"- Mind and Cosmos p.82

GATTO "School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology"- Weapons of Mass Instruction p.xxii

GRAEBER "In 1694, a consortium of English bankers made a loan of £1,200,000 to the king. In return they received a royal monopoly on the issuance of banknotes. What this meant in practice was they had the right to advance IOUs for a portion of the money the king now owed them to any inhabitant of the kingdom willing to borrow from them, or willing to deposit their own money in the bank—in effect, to circulate or "monetize" the newly created royal debt"- Debt: the First 5000 Years p.221

RIES "By asking and answering 'why' five times, we can get to the real cause of the problem, which is often hidden behind more obvious symptoms"- The Lean Startup p.231

CLYNES "We shall call a specific emotional state a sentic state. The word 'sentic' is derived from the Latin root sentire which also is the root of the words 'sentiment' and 'sensation'. We shall use the term specifically to denote the brain state and its corresponding experience generally associated with the word 'emotion'"- Sentics p.17

WIGGLESWORTH "Nine steps to shift: stop - breathe - ask for help - observe yourself - identify and embrace ego-concerns - look deeply for root causes of ego-concerns - reframe the situation and see with new eyes - focus on something to be grateful for - choose a spiritually intelligent response"- The 21 Skills of Spiritual Intelligence p.133

ROTHBARD "For a while, the economic and financial leaders of the United States thought that the Bretton Woods system would provide a veritable bonanza. The Fed could inflate with impunity, for it was confident that, in contrast with the classical gold standard, dollars piling up abroad would stay in foreign hands, to be used as reserves for inflationary pyramiding of currencies by foreign central banks"- The Mystery of Banking p.250

SHAKESPEARE "All that glitters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold. But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold. Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been inscroll'd: Fare you well; your suit is cold"- The Merchant of Venice p.18

GUENON "In reality, there are not two spiritisms, there is only one. But it has two aspects, the one pseudo-religious and the other pseudo-scientific, and according to the temperament of those one is addressing, one can emphasize whichever is preferred. In Anglo-Saxon countries the pseudo-religious side seems more developed than anywhere else. In Latin countries it sometimes seems that the pseudo-scientific side enjoys better success"- The Spiritist Fallacy p.320

PRICE "Modern commerce has deliberately robbed some of nature's foods of much of their body-building material while retaining the hunger satisfying energy factors. In the production of refined white flour approximately 80% of the phosphorus and calcium content are usually removed, together with the vitamins and minerals provided in the embryo or germ. The evidence indicates that a very important factor in the lowering of reproductive efficiency of womanhood is directly related to the removal of vitamin E in the processing of wheat"- Nutrition and Physical Degeneration p.225

BOSTROM "To reduce the risks of the machine intelligence revolution, we will propose two objectives that appear to best meet all those desiderata: strategic analysis and capacity-building. We can be relatively confident about the sign of these parameters - more strategic insight and more capacity being better"- Superintelligence p.257

FRIED "Life on the other side of the traditional office paradigm is simply too good for too many people. Progress on fundamental freedoms, like where to work, is largely cumulative. There might be setbacks here and there from poorly designed programs or misguided attempts at nostalgia, but they'll be mere blips in the long run"- Remote p.241

POSTMAN "In America, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. But these are opinions of a quite different roder from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us. What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation"- Amusing Ourselves to Death p.48

THE ONE "Read!"- The Quran ch.96

DARWIN "Movements or changes in any part of the body, as the wagging of a dog's tail, the drawing back of a horse's ears, the shrugging of a man's shoulders, or the dilatation of the capillary vessels of the skin, may all equally well serve for expression. The three Principles to account for most of the expressions are: the principle of serviceable associated Habits, the principle of Antithesis and the principle of actions due to the constitution of the Nervous System"- The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals p.20

VARGHESE "Absolute nothingness cannot produce something. By nothing I mean precisely that: no laws, no vacuums, no fields, no physical or mental entities of any kind. It is simply inconceivable that something could spontaneously pop into existence out of sheer nothingness"- The Wonder of the World p.224

GORDON "How do our tendons work? Why do we get 'lumbago'? How were pterodactyls able to weigh so little? Why do birds have feathers? How do our arteries work? What can we do for crippled children? Why are sailing ships rigged in the way they are? Why did the bow of Odysseus have to be so hard to string? Why did the ancients take the wheels off their chariots at night? How did a Greek catapult work? Why is a reed shaken by the wind and why is the Parthenon so beautiful? Can engineers learn from natural structures? What can doctors and biologists and artists and archaeologists learn from engineers?"- Structures: or Why Things don't fall down p.7

ILLICH "The study of the evolution of disease patterns provides evidence that during the last century doctors have affected epidemics no more profoundly than did priests during earlier times. Epidemics came and went, imprecated by both but touched by neither. They are not modified any more decisively by the rituals performed in medical clinics than by those customary at religious shrines"- Medical Nemesis p.5

HAWKINS "The straightest way to Enlightenment is by transcending the limitation of the ego/mind by dedication to verified truth itself"- Truth vs Falshood p.405

GUENON "The word 'horn' is linked with the root KRN, and the same applies to 'crown' which is another symbolic expression of the same ideas, for these two words (in Latin cornu and corona) are very close to one another. The crown is, needless to say, the emblem of power and the mark of an elevated rank; and an immediate correpondence with horns lies in the fact that both these and the crown are placed on the head, whence inescapably the idea of a 'summit'"- Fundamental Symbols p.133

BERGSON "An emotion is an affective stirring of the soul, but a surface agitation is one thing, an upheaval of the depths another. The effect is in the first case diffused, in the second it remains undivided. In the one it is an oscillation of the parts without any displacement of the whole; in the other the whole is driven forward"- The Two Sources of Morality and Religion p.97

ARRIEN "Show up and choose to be present. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Tell the truth without blame or judgment. Be Open to outcome, not attached to outcome"- the Four Fold-Way p.15,49,79,109

DAMASIO "Diseases of the brain are seen as tragedies visited on people who cannot be blamed for their condition, while diseases of the mind, especially those that affect conduct and emotion, are seen as social inconveniences for which sufferers have much to answer. Individuals are to be blamed for their character flaws, defective emotional modulation, and so on; lack of willpower is supposed to be the primary problem"- Descartes Error p.19

YUSUF "Whatever rank envy occupies in the hierarchy of diseases, most scholars will agree that it is the first manifestation of wrongdoing. To treat envy, one must consciously oppose one's caprice and then do something that will benefit the person who is envied"- Purification of the Heart p.26

PASQUALE "The same 'rich get richer' dynamics afflict finance, where the largest entities tend to attract more capital simply because they are viewed as 'too big to fail' and 'too big to jail'. Some reformers have fixated on 'breaking up big banks' to restore competition in finance, reasoning that smaller institutions would be less likely to be bailed out if they got into trouble. But do we really want to enable 'failure' in finance, and all the instability that that entails? Wouldn’t it be better to assure that a few fixed points in our constellation of finance firms are stable and serve the public too?"- The Black Box Society p.141

ADAMSON "Light and vision can be formalized as geometrical lines, an implication that al-Kindi and his sources embrace by claiming that vision occurs when 'rays' emitted from the eyes along straight lines strike a visual object. Likewise, objects are illuminated when a light source emits light rays that strike the objects' surfaces. Aspects of al-Kindi's account anticipate that of Ibn al-Haytham, who some decades later would be the first to explain vision accurately"- Al-Kindi p.163

DE GRAFF "34% of Americans polled in 2003 ranked shopping as their favourite activity, while only 17% preferred being in nature. The Las Vegas Strip is ranked the number-one 'scenic drive' in the country. One fourth grader, asked if he preferred to play indoors or outdoors, replies, 'Indoors, cause that's where the electrical outlets are.' Another child pokes a stick at a dead beetle, commenting to her friend that the insect's batteries must have run out"- Affluenza p.189

ABDELAZIZ "Prescribing drugs is an integral part of the practice of medicine, and drugs, sometimes, use poisons as a base. But in prescribing and ingesting a drug other parties may be involved: the patient, his relatives, friends, and other attendants. There are several facets to be explored here: a mere mistake in prescribing or, at the other end of the spectrum, is the criminal use of poisons"- The Fiqh of Medicine p.139

CONFICIUS "The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy"- The Book of Rites p.300

COLLINS "Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly"- Good to Great p.35