Lillian Hellman on hope and habit

vutran | April 3, 2021, 7:10 a.m.

“Things start out as hopes and end up as habits.” 

— Lillian Hellman

James Clear on taking action to influence outcome

vutran | April 2, 2021, 4:43 p.m.

"Fear of failure is higher when you're not working on the problem.

If you are taking action, you are less worried about failure because you realize you can influence the outcome."

— James Clear

Cal Newport on cultivating passion

vutran | April 1, 2021, 8:03 p.m.

#1 Be very good at what you do

#2 Gain more control capital as you get better

#3 From the control capital, perform a lot of experiments to find a sweet spot close to #1 having all what you love, what people need, what you are good at

#4 Once you find a passion sweet spot, x10 your investment to become exceptionally good

— So Good They Can't Ignore You, Cal Newport

Stephen King on you will if you start

vutran | March 30, 2021, 6:17 p.m.

“You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will.”

— Stephen King

Lillian Hellman starting as hopes, end up as habits

vutran | March 30, 2021, 5:39 a.m.

“Things start out as hopes and end up as habits.”

— Lillian Hellman

Neal Stephenson on organizing life to get long, consecutive, uninterrupted time chunks

vutran | March 28, 2021, 8:40 a.m.

“If I organize my life in such a way that I get lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time-chunks, I can write novels. But as those chunks get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops spectacularly. What replaces it? Instead of a novel that will be around for a long time, and that will, with luck, be read by many people, there is a bunch of e-mail messages that I have sent out to individual persons, and a few speeches given at various conferences.”

— Neal Stephenson

Noam Chomsky on seeking what is significant

vutran | March 28, 2021, 8:33 a.m.

"You can't expect somebody to become a biologist by giving them access to the Harvard University biology library and saying, "Just look through it." That will give them nothing. The internet is the same, except magnified enormously.

...

The person who wins the Nobel Prize in biology is not the person who read the most journal articles and took the most notes on them. It's the person who knew what to look for.

Cultivating that capacity to seek what's significant, always willing to question whether you're on the right track, that's what education is going to be about, whether it's using computers and internet, or pencil and paper and books”

— Noam Chomsky