Educating the electorate in the limits of executive power. No one wants to believe it. And anyway, in a democracy there's always an opposition to tell them that anything is possible.
A commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.)
Showing posts with label possibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label possibility. Show all posts
Saturday, August 20, 2022
Saturday, September 28, 2019
The internet reminds us on a daily basis that it is not at all rewarding to become aware of problems that you have no reasonable hope of solving.
Jia Tolentino, as quoted in the New York Review by Jonathan Lethem
Jia Tolentino, as quoted in the New York Review by Jonathan Lethem
Thursday, January 25, 2018
The existence of conscious minds and their access to the evident truths of ethics and mathematics are among the data that a theory of the world and our place in it has yet to explain.... A satisfying explanation would show that the realization of these possibilities was not vanishingly improbable but a significant likelihood given the laws of nature and the composition of the universe.
Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos
Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Ullrich told me about a small boy who was dying of neuroblastoma. “His mother made it very clear to him that she would see him again in Heaven someday. ... But he was worried about how he would find her. So they made a plan to meet in the front left corner of Heaven."
Jerome Groopman in The New Yorker, "Lives Less Ordinary" (January 20, 2014)
Jerome Groopman in The New Yorker, "Lives Less Ordinary" (January 20, 2014)
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can.
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
When you're surrounded by endless possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them up.
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)