#cho

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then? ↗

— George Orwell

#logic #metaphysics #ontology #philosophy #psychology

Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before. ↗

— Kim Stanley Robinson

#psychology #science #science

At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitueds--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#psychology #science

I failed angst in high school. They let me graduate anyway. ↗

— John Scalzi

#high-school #teens #teen

We are free to choose our paths, but we can't choose the consequences that come with them. ↗

— Sean Covey

#consequences #responsibility #teen

If I were to draw on a paper what gym does for me, I would make one dot and then I would erase it. ↗

— Elizabeth Berg

#exercise #gym #gym-class #joy-school #school

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." [The Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1995: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management and the District of Columbia of the Committee on Governmental Affairs (1996)] ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#choices #decision #decisiveness #inaction #right-and-wrong

He often felt that too many people lived their lives acting and pretending,wearing masks and losing themselves in the process. ↗

— Nicholas Sparks

#acting

That's most interesting. But I was no more a mind-reader then than today. I was weeping for an altogether different reason. When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten. ↗

— Kazuo Ishiguro

#coldness #cruelty #dancing #future #heartbreak

He went farther into the shadows to exchange his pants for the leather breeches. Too bad. When he emerged again, he looked pretty good even though it wasn’t his style. And he was lucky there were no tights, after all. He tilted his head. “You like it.” “Shut up.” I blushed. I hated vampire extrasensory perception. It wasn’t fair that he could hear my heartbeat or smell my skin or what ever. “Girls are so weird.” Kieran snorted. “No kidding.” “Please, you two were fighting ten minutes ago, and now you’re the best of friends?” I said witheringly. “Guys are weird. ↗

— Alyxandra Harvey

#lucy #nicholas #love