WIST Quotations

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas -- The Black Swan, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Apprenticeship of an Empirical Skeptic” (2007)

Dave — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 17:01:53 +0000

History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what’s inside the box, how the mechanisms work. What I call the generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds. You are very likely to be fooled about their intentions.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Apprenticeship of an Empirical Skeptic” (2007)
(Source)

Taylor, Barbara Brown -- Interview (2014-11-09), “Why Life Is Like a Sailboat Ride,” by Oprah Winfrey, Super Soul Sunday, 05×522, Oprah Winfrey Network

Dave — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 21:03:31 +0000

I think we’d like life to be a train. And you get on and pick a destination and get off. And it turns out to be a sailboat. And everyday, you have to see where the wind is and check the currents and see if there’s anybody else on the boat you can help out. But it is a sailboat ride. And the weather changes, and the currents change, and the wind changes. It’s not a train ride. That’s the hardest thing I’ve had to accept in my life. I just thought I had to pick the right train.

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Interview (2014-11-09), “Why Life Is Like a Sailboat Ride,” by Oprah Winfrey, Super Soul Sunday, 05×522, Oprah Winfrey Network
(Source)

Starts at 0:48 in the linked video. Usually just rendered to as "I think we'd like life to be a train ... but it turns out to be a sailboat."

Howe, Irving -- “The Agony of the Campus,” Dissent #16 (Sep-Oct 1969)

Dave — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 20:36:37 +0000

Politics is, among other things, the art of anticipating consequences, and even trying to anticipate unfamiliar consequences.

Irving Howe (1920-1993) American literary and social critic [b. Irving Horenstein]
“The Agony of the Campus,” Dissent #16 (Sep-Oct 1969)
(Source)

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 2, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 2, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297
(Source)

Collected in Allen Thorndike Rice (ed.), The Christian Religion, ch. 1 (1882).

See Longfellow (1857).