Another definition of modernity: conversations can be more and more completely reconstructed with clips from other conversations taking place at the same time on the planet.

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds

We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race - we are a very unfair one.

They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)

At no point in history have so many non-risk-takers, that is, those with no personal exposure, exerted so much control.

Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.

If you let markets - in general, my belief is that if you let markets give you information, they'll give you the information rather than artificially prop up everything.