Quotes About Perspective

You have to be able to see things from the user's point of view.

looking at things from other people's point of view is practically the secret of success.

You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people you have to do things that are arbitrary and believe things that are false.

You might find contradictory taboos. In one culture it might seem shocking to think x, while in another it was shocking not to. But I think usually the shock is on one side. In one culture x is ok, and in another it's considered shocking. My hypothesis is that the side that's shocked is most likely to be the mistaken one.

We often like to think of World War II as a triumph of freedom over totalitarianism. We conveniently forget that the Soviet Union was also one of the winners.

Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.

Many people feel confused and depressed in their early twenties. Life seemed so much more fun in college. Well, of course it was. Don't be fooled by the surface similarities. You've gone from guest to servant. It's possible to have fun in this new world. Among other things, you now get to go behind the doors that say authorized personnel only. But the change is a shock at first, and all the worse if you are not consciously aware of it.

Empathy doesn't necessarily mean being self-sacrificing. Far from it. Understanding how someone else sees things doesn't imply that you'll act in his interest; in some situations — in war, for example — you want to do exactly the opposite.

If you'll laugh about something one day, you may as well start now.

In practice I think it's easier to see ugliness than to imagine beauty.

some of those most vocal on the subject of wealth — university students, heirs, professors, politicians, and journalists — have the least experience creating it.

To write good software you must simultaneously keep two opposing ideas in your head. You need the young hacker's naive faith in his abilities, and at the same time the veteran's skepticism. You have to be able to think how hard can it be? with one half of your brain while thinking it will never work with the other.

How can you see the wave, when you're the water?

A mountaintop is not simply an elevation, but an island, a world within a world, a place out of place.

Everything's a data point.

The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe" - Albert Einstein  [52]

The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.

We need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit.

Love of Truth is one of the strongest motives for replacing what really happens by a streamlined account or, to express it in a less polite manner -- love of truth is one of the strongest motives for deceiving oneself and others.

Aha! Ora dimmi: pensi di avere una mentalità aperta? A. Si, ragionevolmente aperta. B. E avere una mentalità aperta significa essere pronti ad esaminare i meriti e i demeriti di ogni idea, indipendentemente da quanto possa apparire strana a prima vista, vero?

Businesspeople are not used to thinking about closed systems;economists are.

cita de Daniel Patrick Moynihan, «todo el mundo tiene derecho a tener su propia opinión, pero no sus propios hechos»

whenever I want to stop myself being too Marxist about the future, I think about Shakespeare.

This is the trouble with history, though. Even if you were there, which I obviously was, it's sometimes very difficult to pin down.