We like people who help us, and we help people we life. However, in terms of favours, it is surprising how little it takes for us to like a person, and how much we give on the basis of so little. It seems that if you want to help yourself, you should help others first.
Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, London, 2009, p. 75
Researchers have spent a great deal of time looking at the link between people’s scores on these types of questionnaires and happiness. The findings are as consistent as they are worrying –high scores tend to be associated with feeling unhappy and unsatisfied with life. Of course, this is not the case with every single materialist and so, if you did get a high score, you might be one of the happy-go-lucky people who buck the trend. (However, before assuming this, do bear in mind that research also suggests that whenever we are confronted with negative results from tests, we are exceptionally good at convincing ourselves that we are an exception to the rule.)
Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, London, 2009, pp. 25-26
If it seems a bit depressing that the most important thing you can do to improve performance is no fun, take consolation in this fact: It must be so. If the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun, then everyone would do them and they would not distinguish the best from the rest. The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people won’t do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more.
Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, New York, 2008, p. 72
Two high school seniors sharing a pizza, judging the practicality and morality of anarcho-capitalism—it doesn’t get any better.
Bryan Caplan, ‘An Intellectual Autobiography’, In Walter Block (ed.), I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians (Auburn, Alabama, 2010), p. 75
Pérdida de tiempo. Para las mujeres, la duración de un amor que no concluye en matrimonio. “Con Prudencio, perdí siete años.”
Adolfo Bioy Casares, Descanso de caminantes: diarios íntimos, Buenos Aires, 2001, p. 89