This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.
Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
There are problems which happen so quickly that you can't do sustained thinking while you're in the middle of them, but sustained thinking might help install good reflexes for the general case.
For example, I fell safely on ice for the first time this past winter. I'm reasonably sure that the Five Tibetans (a sort of cross between yoga and calesthenics) strengthened the muscles around my knees and possibly had other good effects such that I didn't twist my knee.
The thinking how to fall to get a minimal possible damage is still a potential way out.
At least, the thinking increases your odds to survive in any situation you are thrown into.
How many people died needlessly of chocking, when they could invent the auto Heimlich - but they failed to do so?
11simplicio
Alas, rigorous truth is the constant enemy of the aphorism.
This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.