The tragedy isn’t that people don’t think. It’s that they do think; they’re just not very good at it.

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
– Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

If there’s a hole in the bottom, rocking the boat may be the only way to stop it from sinking.

I am mostly interested in the aesthetic experience associated with the unification of scientific theory. Why? Because the fact that such unification is possible is the deepest truth about the universe, and the fact that we find such unification aesthetically appealing is the deepest truth about us.

A 2010 amendment to Thoreau’s 1849 original: “The number of men leading lives of quiet desperation is matched only by the number loudly trying to convince themselves that they aren’t.”