My Book Highlights

"“It is too easy to examine history and say, “Look, if you just held on and took a long-term view, things recovered and life went on,” without realizing that mindsets are harder to repair than buildings and cash flows.”"

— Same as Ever

"“lascio a ognuno il suo piedistallo: Robespierre in place Louis XV, sul suo patibolo; Napoleone in place Vendôme, sulla sua colonna. Solo che uno ha creato un’uguaglianza verso il basso e l’altro un’uguaglianza verso l’alto; uno ha abbassato i re al livello della ghigliottina e l’altro ha elevato il popolo al livello del trono.”"

— Il conte di Montecristo

"His [the man of resentment] soul squints; his mind loves dark corners, secret passages and hidden doors, everything covert appeals to him as his world, his security, his comfort; he is a past master of silence, of not forgetting, of patience, of assuming a mode of self-deprecation and humility for a while. A race of such resentful men will eventually prove more cunning than any aristocratic race; they will respect cunning to a much greater degree, namely as something most vital to existence, whereas cunning among aristocratic men is apt to be redolent of luxury and refinement;"

— On the Genealogy of Morals

"“No one can know what traits will be useful; that’s not how evolution works. But if you create a lot of traits, the useful one—whatever it is—will be in there somewhere. It’s the same thing with innovation. At any given moment it’s easy to look around at what start-ups are building or what scientists are discovering and think that what we’re working on is maybe neat—at best—but pales in comparison to what we did yesterday. Since we never know how multiple innovations will collide, the path of least resistance is to conclude that our best days are behind us while ignoring the potential of what we’re working on.”"

— Same as Ever

"“There is no such thing as a good father because the role itself is bad. Strict fathers, soft fathers, nice moderate fathers—one’s as bad as another. They stand in the way of our progress while they try to burden us with their inferiority complexes, and their unrealized aspirations, and their resentments, and their ideals, and the weaknesses they’ve never told anyone about, and their sins, and their sweeter-than-honey dreams, and the maxims they’ve never had the courage to live by—they’d like to unload all that silly crap on us, all of it! Even the most neglectful fathers, like mine, are no different."

— The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea