Glamour is translucent — not transparent, not opaque. It invites us into the world but it doesn’t give us a completely clear picture.

The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. But neither is it useless. SAT scores do measure both specific knowledge and valuable thinking skills.

Progress through trial and error depends not only on making trials, but on recognizing errors.

Glamour doesn’t just happen, people don’t wake up in the morning glamorous.

Kidney disease is a low-profile, unglamorous problem, a disease that disproportionately strikes minorities and the poor. Its celebrity spokesman is blue-collar comedian George Lopez, who received a kidney from his wife.

In a dynamic, decentralized system of individual choice and responsibility, people do not have to trust any authority but their own.

At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out.