Life is a Sisyphean race, run ever faster toward a finish line that is merely the start of the next race
Matt RidleyProsperity has brought complications. Our lives are busier, faster, more stressful. They're nostalgic for a simpler, slower time.
Matt RidleyIntelligence will become more and more collective; innovation and order will become more and more bottom-up.
Matt RidleyIt is the assumption of this book that there is a typical human nature. It is the aim of this book to seek it. Just like a surgeon, a psychiatrist can make all sorts of basic assumptions when a patient lies down upon the couch. He can assume that the patient knows what it means to love, to envy, to trust, to think, to speak, to fear, to smile, to bargain, to covet, to dream, to remember, to sing, to quarrel, to lie. The 'smile' of a baboon is a threat; the smile of a man is a sign of pleasure: it is human nature, the world over.
Matt Ridley