No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough.

Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.

Creativity comes from applying things you learn in other fields to the field you work in.

No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough.

Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.

What is "this drive"? It's the tendency to not simply accept things as they are but to want to think about them, to understand them. To not be content to simply feel sad but to ask what sadness means. To not just get a bus pass but to think about the economic reasons getting a bus pass makes sense. I call this tendency the intellectual.

As the Internet breaks down the last justifications for a professional class of politicians, it also builds up the tools for replacing them.