Monthly Archives: February 2016

Derek Parfit

I sometimes want to kick my car[.] Since I have this anger at material objects, which is manifestly irrational, it’s easier to me to think, when I get angry with people, that this is also irrational.

Derek Parfit, ‘An Interview with Derek Parfit’, Cogito, Vol. 9, No. 2 (August, 1995), p. 118

Leó Szilárd

In order to succeed it is not necessary to be much cleverer than other people. All you have to do is be one day ahead of them.

Leó Szilárd, quoted in “Close-up: I’m looking for a market for wisdom. Leo Szilard, Scientist”, Life, Vol. 51, No. 9 (September 1, 1961), p. 75

Bryan Caplan

It’s easy to change a child but hard to keep him from changing back. Instead of thinking of children as lumps of clay for parents to mold, we should think of them as plastic that flexes in response to pressure—and pops back to its original shape once the pressure is released.

Bryan Caplan, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think, New York, 2011, p. 5

Tyler Cowen

If the increase in well-being is largely illusory in the long term, once preferences and expectations have adjusted, the famous are trapped in the worst of all possible worlds. Their fame brings little benefit, while they are imprisoned by their need to preserve their reputation.

Tyler Cowen, What Price Fame?, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000, p. 160

Tyler Cowen

Some performers manipulate the style of their product to shift the incentives of critics to pay attention. Richard Posner cites Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Kafka as figures who owe part of their reputation to the enigmatic and perhaps even contradictory nature of their writings. Unclear authors, at least if they have substance and depth, receive more attention from critics and require more textual exegesis. Individual critics can establish their own reputations by studying such a writer and by promoting one interpretation of that writer’s work over another These same critics will support the inclusion of the writer in the canon, to promote the importance of their own criticism. In effect, deep and ambiguous writers are offering critics implicit invitations to serve as co-authors of a broader piece of work.

Tyler Cowen, What Price Fame?, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000, pp. 34-35