Strassberg Associates Quotes & Sayings

If you put it as 'complex nervous systems' it sounds pretty deflationary. What's so special about a complex nervous system? But of course, that complex nervous system allows you to do calculus. It allows you to do astrophysics ... to write poetry ... to fall in love. Put under that description, when asked 'What's so special about humans ... ?', I'm at a loss to know how to answer that question. If you don't see why we'd be special ... because we can do poetry [and] think philosophical thoughts [and] we can think about the morality of our behavior, I'm not sure what kind of answer could possibly satisfy you at that point.
... I could pose the same kinds of questions of you ... So God says, 'You are guys are really, really special.' How does his saying it make us special? 'But you see, he gave us a soul.' How does our having a soul make us special? Whatever answer you give, you could always say ... 'What's so special about that? — Shelly Kagan

Once you found the math in a thing, you knew everything about it, and you could manipulate it to your heart's content with nothing more than a pencil and a napkin. — Neal Stephenson

I'm nothing to you, am I' Peter said once in a particularly intense arguement about where to find wild turnips. To these kinds of accusations, Tiger Lily would reply that he was trying to make her into his little chicken, and that she would never be anyone's 'little obedient chicken — Jodi Lynn Anderson

They had to return to the one sure and never-failing resource- slander. — Leo Tolstoy

As D. H. Lawrence said, I am not a mechanism. — John Eldredge

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin. — Friedrich Nietzsche

My sore throats are always worse than anyone's. — Jane Austen

If only talking to oneself did not look mad, no day would go by without my being heard growling to myself. - you silly shit! — Michel De Montaigne

The gospels, never meant to report, but
rather to convince, are in no sense objective and dispassionate biographies. They are glowing accounts meant to persuade people of the writers' convictions. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Get the weirdnesses into the data where you can manipulate them easily, and the regularity into the code because regular code is a lot easier to work with — Brian Kernighan

Maybe this is blasphemy to say, but I feel like music is not meant to be something that earning your keep depends on because it cheapens it and it will force you into making decisions in the interest of earning your keep, as opposed to the interest of the thing itself. — John Maus

The Crown. Place it upon your head and you assume a different post-tranquil yet radiating assurance. Never show doubt, never lose your dignity beneath the crown, or it will not fit. It will seem to be destined for one more worthy. Do not wait for a coronation; the greatest emporers crown themselves. — Robert Greene

I snapped to consciousness with the incandescent realization that somewhere, deep in our dreams, or deep in unconsciousness, or deep in the afterlife, all conflicts and acrimonies are resolved. That it was consciousness that so unrelentingly afflicted us with suffering. — Rex Pickett

I occasionally meet people and they say, 'Oh, I was born to Discreet Music' ... They always have very weird eyes, those people. — Brian Eno

Perhaps these ancient observatories like Stonehenge perennially impress modern people because modern people have no idea how the Sun, Moon, or stars move. We are too busy watching evening television to care what's going on in the sky. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson