Tech, Strategy, and other interesting things by Roberto Zoia
Without enchantment and fantasy, we face no mysteries, only static things we have not rationally explained yet. Without mystery, there is no humility; and when humility shrinks, societies rot from within and topple like trees hollowed out by disease. The cure is found in networked pockets of flourishing imaginative community.
— Declaration of Enchantment, Article 13
No one can tell you that your plan will succeed. No one can tell you what their answer to your question will be. No one can guarantee you’ll make it home alive. They can’t even tell you how far down the hole goes.
If they could, if it wasn’t scary, everyone would do it. And then wouldn’t need to be done by you, now would it?
The coward waits for the stairs that will never come. They want to know the probabilities. They want time to prepare. They want assurances They hope for a reprieve. They’re willing to give up anything to get these things, including this moment of opportunity that will never, ever come back.
— Ryan Holiday, Courage is Calling, p. 54
The quotes, talks, and speeches presented here are rooted in the old-fashioned Midwestern values for which Charlie has become known: lifelong learning intellectual curiosity, sobriety, avoidance of envy and resentment, reliability, learning from the mistakes of others, perseverance, objectivity, willingness to test one’s own beliefs, and many more. But his advice comes not in the form of stentorian admonishments; instead, Charlie uses humor, inversions (following the directive of the great algebraist, Jacobi, to "Invert, always invert"), and paradox to provide sage counsel about life’s toughest challenges.
— Poor Charlie’s Almanack, The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger, Introduction
When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – You may know that your society is doomed.
— Any Rand, Atlas Shrugged
