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  • Misunderstanding Others

    It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.

    — Karl A. Menninger, The Human Mind

    This quote is a more poetic version of the one I posted yesterday that said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

    According to Dr. George Watson at the University of Delaware, Karl Menninger was an early psychoanalyst who was probably referring to the criminal mind in this quote. Dr. Watson provides an expanded context of the quote.

  • The best evidence for the existence of intelligent life

    The best evidence for the existence of intelligent life in the universe lies in the fact that they have steadfastly refused to contact us.

    — Richard Boyd

    I saw this quote as a letter-to-the-editor in one of the San Francisco Bay Area papers several years ago. I love the twisted logic and the inherent presumptions that it contains. Some attempts at logical arguments for the existence of God share these logical fallacies.

  • The Law of Anecdotal Value

    Choose the experiences in life that offer the most anecdotal value — that is, look for the opportunities that have the most likelihood of producing a cool story.

    At the The Moth Chicago Grand Slam this year Peter Sagal (yes, that Peter Sagal) relayed these words of wisdom, passed on to him by a theater professor at Lewis and Clark College many years before.

    With a tip of the hat to The Moth, make it a story-worthy life.

  • Madness

    We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

    Goethe

    Goethe lived from 1749 to 1832. In the two centuries since his death I am please to report that the planet has made great strides in mental health. At the dawn of the 21st century we have managed to confine the majority of our disordered minds to the executive suites and the board rooms of our largest corporations. A small consolation to the millions of us who must work in these corporations but progress nonetheless.

  • Apathy

    History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

    — Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom

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