Quotes About Mindset

The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts.

Greatness starts with the replacement of hatred with polite disdain.

Mother Nature has given us some defense mechanisms: as in Aesop's fable, one of these is our ability to consider that the grapes we cannot (or did not) reach are sour. But an aggressively stoic prior disdain and rejection of the grapes is even more rewarding. Be aggressive; be the one to resign, if you have the guts.

but a problem in our minds, stemming from the way we look at it.

People with an engineering-oriented mind will tend to look at everything around as an engineering problem. This is a very good thing in engineering, but when dealing with cats, it is a much better idea to hire veterinarians than circuit engineers…

Out of sight, out of mind: we harbor a natural, even physical, scorn of the abstract.

we need to shift some of our worries to bigger things.

He would be forced to act as a satisficer instead of a maximizer

Nero, seu otário. Não se deixe iludir pelo dinheiro. São apenas números. Ser dono do próprio nariz é um estado de espírito".

For those readers who wonder about the difference between Buddhism and Stoicism, I have a simple answer. A Stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one who says "f*** you" to fate.

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended.

Having spent a couple of decades in this mind-set, I am convinced (but cannot prove) that training and education can help us avoid its pitfalls.

We do not spontaneously learn that we don't learn that we don't learn. The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts. Metarules (such as the rule that we have a tendency to not learn rules) we don't seem to be good at getting. We scorn the abstract; we scorn it with passion

you need to know whether you do not like the pursuit of money and wealth because you genuinely do not like it, or because you are rationalizing your inability to be successful at it with the argument that wealth is not a good thing because it is bad for one's digestive system or disturbing for one's sleep or other such arguments.

your happiness depends far more on the number of instances of positive feelings, what psychologists call "positive affect," than on their intensity when they hit. In

Mathematics is not just a "numbers game," it is a way of thinking. We will see that probability is a qualitative subject.

have some element of loss aversion.

The Platonic fold is the explosive boundary where the Platonic mind-set enters in contact with messy reality, where the gap between what you know and what you think you know becomes dangerously wide. It is here that the Black Swan is produced.

The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds—so those who delay developing their theories are better off.

Plenty of mildly good news is preferable to one single lump of great news.

Stay robust to how others treat you.

The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds—so those who delay developing their theories are better off. When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.

Even more: dependence on circumstances—rather, the emotions that arise from circumstances—induces a form of slavery.

Stoicism makes you desire the challenge of a calamity.