Lesswrong Rationality Quotes & Sayings

You are exactly like Jesus when you are wearing his armor. — Joseph Prince

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come — William Wordsworth

For me, trying to articulate the world to help people see it in a way they haven't seen it before is hugely important. Sometimes, you have to take something that is completely inexplicable and say, 'Look, here is the beating heart of something you must understand.' — Beeban Kidron

So much of a rationalist's skill is below the level of words. It makes for challenging work in trying to convey the Art through blog posts. People will agree with you, but then, in the next sentence, do something subdeliberative that goes in the opposite direction. Not that I'm complaining! A major reason I'm posting here is to observe what my words haven't conveyed. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

There's a whole [ ... ] art to finding the truth and accomplishing value from inside a human mind: we have to learn our own flaws, overcome our biases, prevent ourselves from self-deceiving, get ourselves into good emotional shape to confront the truth and do what needs doing, etcetera etcetera and so on. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

The Way of Bayes is also an imprecise art, at least the way I'm holding forth upon it. These blog posts are still fumbling attempts to put into words lessons that would be better taught by experience. But at least there's underlying math, plus experimental evidence from cognitive psychology on how humans actually think. Maybe that will be enough to cross the stratospherically high threshold required for a discipline that lets you actually get it right, instead of just constraining you into interesting new mistakes. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Don't trust thoughts because you think them, but because they obey specific trustworthy rules. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Write. Enjoy writing. Then, and only then, worry about the business end of it. Start loving your hobby, and then you can't go too wrong. — Arthur Phillips

You need one whole hell of a lot of rationality before it does anything but lead you into new and interesting mistakes. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

There was an author who titled his books by days of the weeks and another one that used colors. Then there was Edward Gorey who wrote the book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, about the untimely death of 26 Victorian children, each representing a letter of the alphabet. I thought what a great way to link the titles. — Sue Grafton

Responsible murder is the new recycling. — Isaac Marion

I've seen people severely messed up by their own knowledge of biases. They have more ammunition with which to argue against anything they don't like. And that problem - too much ready ammunition - is one of the primary ways that people with high mental agility end up stupid, in Stanovich's "dysrationalia" sense of stupidity. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

One of my favorite things is mayonnaise and I have to tell you that. I love mayonnaise, but I don't eat it any more. If I do I put light mayonnaise on it, which I know is still not good but it's a lot better than the other one and I don't eat it that much. — Mike Ditka

Don't believe you've reached the end before you've even reached the beginning. — Charles F. Glassman

I feel like I'm one of the biggest feminists in the world because I tell women not to be scared of anything, — Miley Cyrus

We are a nation of 20 million bathrooms, with a humanist in every tub. — Mary McCarthy

Israel has to accommodate the Palestinian demands and aspirations for ending occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. That is the only answer. The Israeli aggression on Gaza does not bring peace to Israel. We know that. We want end of occupation. — Benjamin Netanyahu

Once upon a time, there was a man who was convinced that he possessed a Great Idea. Indeed, as the man thought upon the Great Idea more and more, he realized that it was not just a great idea, but the most wonderful idea ever. The Great Idea would unravel the mysteries of the universe, supersede the authority of the corrupt and error-ridden Establishment, confer nigh-magical powers upon its wielders, feed the hungry, heal the sick, make the whole world a better place, etc. etc. etc.
The man was Francis Bacon, his Great Idea was the scientific method, and he was the only crackpot in all history to claim that level of benefit to humanity and turn out to be completely right. — Eliezer Yudkowsky