Quotes About Relevance

People don't remember me. Really. It's not any paranoid thing; I just have this habit of slipping through memories. It doesn't bother me all that much, except I guess that's a lie; it does. For some reason, I test very high on forgettability.

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

Christianity has a basic content, and that content matters.

When a thing is new, people say: 'It is not true.' Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: 'It is not important.' Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: 'Anyway, it is not new.

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.

The pragmatic method starts from the postulate that there is no difference of truth that doesn't make a difference of fact somewhere; and it seeks to determine the meaning of all differences of opinion by making the discussion hinge as soon as possible upon some practical or particular issue.

Do please," said Captain Naphi, "expedite this journey relevance-ward.

Well, sometimes," Dane said, "Just because someone uses something wrong doesn't mean it's useless.

I don't care about age very much.

In Sternin's judgment, all of this analysis was "TBU"—true but useless.

Statistics are rarely meaningful in and of themselves. Statistics will, and should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship. It's more important for people to remember the relationship than the number.

An accurate but useless idea is still useless.

If a message can't be used to make predictions or decisions, it is without value, no matter how accurate or comprehensive it is.

punch line: The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don't yet care about and something they do care about.

If an atomic bomb fell on Raleigh, it wouldn't be news in Benson unless some of the debris and ashes fell on Benson.

Know what your listeners care about, so you can tailor your communication to them.

The lesson for the rest of us is that if we want to make people care, we've got to tap into the things they care about. When everybody taps into the same thing, an arms race emerges. To avoid it, we've either got to shift onto new turf, as Thompson did, or find associations that are distinctive for our ideas.

Statistics aren't inherently helpful; it's the scale and context that make them so.

This is important. This is real. We're in this together. And what we're doing matters.

The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don't yet care about and something they do care about. We

You say 10 things, you say nothing.

Such is the ancient law of the universe. Of karma and its fruit. The idea of motive is irrelevant to it.

In a world of infinite choice, not context content is king.