Tim Urban Quotes

Insecurity can be solved the hard way or the easy way - and by giving people the easy option, dogmatic tribes remove the pressure to do the hard work of evolving into a more independent person with a more internally-defined identity.

Humility is by definition a starting point - and it sends you off on a journey from there. The arrogance of certainty is both a starting point and an ending point - no journeys needed.

A Facebook status is annoying if it primarily serves the author and does nothing positive for anyone reading it.

And learning, for Musk, is simply the process of "downloading data and algorithms into your brain."3 Among his many frustrations with formal classroom learning is the "ridiculously slow download speed" of sitting in a classroom while a teacher explains something, and to this day, most of what he knows he's learned through reading.

Over time, big industries tend to get flabby and uncreative and risk-averse - and if the right outsider company has the means and creativity to come at the industry with a fresh perspective and rethink the whole thing, there's often a huge opportunity there.

Be humbler about what [you] know, more confident about what's possible, and less afraid of things that don't matter.

Atheism isn't a growth model any more than "I don't like rollerblading" is a workout strategy.

The best friend of a blind Us is a nemesis Us - Them. Nothing unites Us like a collectively hated anti-Us, and the blind tribe is usually defined almost as much by hating the dogma of Them as it is by abiding by the dogma of Us. Whatever

Depending on where The Great Filter occurs, we're left with three possible realities: We're rare, we're first, or we're fucked.