If you want to kill an idea without being identified as the assassin, suggest that the legal department take a look at it.
Scott AdamsRead
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.
Interpretation
Humans often act irrationally in hopes of achieving extraordinary outcomes, which reflects our nature.
In this quote, Scott Adams highlights a fundamental aspect of human behavior: our tendency to engage in irrational actions when seeking out highly improbable rewards. This impulse is evident in various facets of life, such as gambling, seeking love, or even religious faith, suggesting that our motivations often transcend logical reasoning as we chase after dreams that seem nearly unattainable.
In practice
In a motivational speech about taking risks, one could reference this quote to illustrate the nature of pursuing dreams.
If you want to kill an idea without being identified as the assassin, suggest that the legal department take a look at it.
My failed corporate career became the fodder for the 'Dilbert' comic. Once it became clear I would not be climbing any higher on the corporate ladder, it freed me to mock managers without worrying that it would stall my career. Most failures create some sort of unplanned freedom. I took full advantage of mine.
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
What does it mean to be yourself?” he asked. “If it means to do what you think you ought to do, then you’re doing that already. If it means to act like you’re exempt from society’s influence, that’s the worst advice in the world; you would probably stop bathing and wearing clothes. The advice to ‘be yourself’ is obviously nonsense. But our brains accept this tripe as wisdom because it is more comfortable to believe we have a strategy for life than to believe we have no idea how to behave.
This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
The only time you should look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.
If God is to create or to preserve a creature, God must be present and must make and preserve God's creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects.
There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.
My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home.
People say, 'Did you violate Heaven?' Well, God is down here, too. If you believe in God, you believe in God here as well as 240,000 miles away.
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