A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.

Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.

Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get.

Scientists may be in the business of laughing at their predecessors, but owing to an array of human mental dispositions, few realize that someone will laugh at their beliefs in the (disappointingly near) future.

Character is proportionate to N, the number of consecutive failures without being discouraged, or equivalently, the number of successive rejections without being intimidated.

Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.