If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
Eliezer YudkowskyRead
You'd think is something one would grow out of. But you grow into it. The more you do, the more you realize how painfully easy it is to be lousy and how very difficult to be good.
Interpretation
Maturity involves recognizing the challenge of striving for goodness amidst the ease of falling into mediocrity.
This quote by Glenda Jackson emphasizes a profound realization that as one matures, they begin to understand the complexities of moral and personal excellence. It highlights the paradox that while one might expect to naturally outgrow certain challenges, in reality, the journey of personal growth reveals the simplicity of being mediocre compared to the arduous task of being good, requiring conscious effort and self-awareness.
In practice
During a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of striving for excellence.
If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
Order is a necessary condition for anything the human mind is to understand.
Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.
Be not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say, "Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you."
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. I was greatly excited at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive a gift in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. . . . I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.
There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.