John Brockman Quotes

The universe consists primarily of dark matter. We can't see it, but it has an enormous gravitational force. The conscious mind - much like the visible aspect of the universe - is only a small fraction of the mental world. The dark matter of the mind, the unconscious, has the greatest psychic gravity. Disregard the dark matter of the universe and anomalies appear. Ignore the dark matter of the mind and our irrationality is inexplicable. ~ John Brockman

Economics graduate students are far more likely to free-ride than other students. ~ John Brockman

That's the way of all good explanations. The better they are, the more questions they raise. ~ John Brockman

Mischel refers to this skill as the "strategic allocation of attention," and he argues that it's the skill underlying self-control. Too often, we assume that willpower is about having strong moral fiber. But that's wrong. Willpower is really about properly directing the spotlight of attention, learning how to control that short list of thoughts in working memory. It's about realizing that if we're thinking about the marshmallow, we're going to eat it, which is why we need to look away. ~ John Brockman

I can answer the question, but am I bright enough to ask it? ~ John Brockman

The universe has been around for 13.8 billion years and ~ John Brockman

Psychological well-being is not determined by the presence of one type of emotion but by a diversity of emotions, both positive and negative. Whether or not an emotion is "good" or "bad" seems to have surprisingly little to do with the emotion itself but rather with how mindfully we ride the ebbing and flowing tides of our rich emotional life. ~ John Brockman

Every aspect of life is an experiment that can be better understood if it is perceived in that way. ~ John Brockman

Some places in the world, such as Ramsar, Iran, have a tenfold higher background radiation, ~ John Brockman

Happy brains are all alike; every unhappy brain is unhappy in its own way. ~ John Brockman

After several decades of empirical study, Jaques concluded that just as humans differ in intelligence, we differ in our ability to handle time-dependent complexity. We all have a natural time horizon we are comfortable with: what Jaques called "time span of discretion," or the length of the longest task an individual can successfully undertake. ~ John Brockman

Creativity is a fragile flower, but perhaps it can be fertilized with systematic doses of serendipity. ~ John Brockman

What is the universe, anyway? To test your knowledge of the universe, please complete the following sentence. The universe (a) consists of all things visible and invisible - what is, has been, and will be. (b) began 13.8 billion years ago in a giant explosion called the Big Bang and encompasses all planets, stars, galaxies, space, and time. (c) was licked out of the salty rim of the primordial fiery pit by the tongue of a giant cow. (d) All of the above. (Correct answer below.) ~ John Brockman

Bad behavior is seen as something to be noticed, reported on, and analyzed, whereas people who do not lie and cheat are taken for granted. ~ John Brockman

The story emerging from these studies is not yet complete, but it has already led to fascinating insights. Thanks to its microbes, a baby can better digest its mother's milk. And your ability to digest carbohydrates relies to a significant extent on enzymes that can be made only by genes present not in you but in your microbiome. ~ John Brockman

They fight against popular creationism, but at the same time they fight fanatically for their own creationism," he ~ John Brockman

it is difficult to discern where "you" end and the remainder of the world begins. ~ John Brockman

Traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time. ~ John Brockman

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research. ~ John Brockman

I believe that consciousness is, essentially, the way information feels when being processed. ~ John Brockman

We'd be unfeeling, unconscious zombies if we did. ~ John Brockman

Computers are fine, but it's time to return to the mind itself and stop pretending we have computers for brains. ~ John Brockman

Uncertainty is intrinsic to the process of finding out what you don't know, not a weakness to avoid. ~ John Brockman

By undercutting fundamentalism and intolerance, education would curtail violence and war. By empowering women, it would curb poverty and the population explosion. ~ John Brockman

It's an illusion to believe that you can be happy when no one else is. Or that other people will not be affected by your unhappiness. ~ John Brockman

Civilizations do fail. We have never seen one that hasn't. The difference is that the torch of progress has, in the past, always passed to another region of the world. But we now for the first time have a single, global civilization. If it fails, we all fail together. ~ John Brockman

But there is another case for curating as a vanguard activity for the twenty-first century. As the artist Tino Sehgal has pointed out, modern societies find themselves today in an unprecedented situation: The problem of lack, or scarcity, which has been the primary factor motivating scientific and technological innovation, is now joined and even superseded by the problem of the global effects of overproduction and resource use. Thus, moving beyond the object as the locus of meaning has a further relevance. Selection, presentation, and conversation are ways for human beings to create and exchange real value, without dependence on older, unsustainable processes. Curating can take the lead in pointing us toward this crucial importance of choosing. ~ John Brockman

If it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very definition of news is 'something that hardly ever happens. ~ John Brockman (Ed.)

After all, there have never been loonies carrying signs saying, "The End is Not Near. ~ John Brockman

Twice as many people in India have access to cell phones as to latrines. ~ John Brockman

Whereas it (modern science) does say that we are an accident in an indifferent universe, it also says that we are a rare accident and thus not pointless. ~ Marcelo Gleiser

Filters fail when they know us too well and when they don't know us well enough. ~ John Brockman

On his teenage son: To be honest, I'm not sure the same kid comes home each night. ~ John Bishop

I am heartless, she thinks, but she knows even through her guilt that this isn't true. She knows there are traps everywhere that can make her cry, she knows the way she dies a little every time someone asks her for change and she doesn't give it to them means that she's too soft for this world or perhaps just for this city, ~ Emily St. John Mandel

The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. ~ John Steinbeck

When I go in to see people - and I sell an occasional ad now - I never say, 'Help me because I am black' or 'Help me because I am a minority.' I always talk about what we can do for them. ~ John H. Johnson

THE LAW OF THE PRICE TAG The Team Fails to Reach Its Potential When It Fails to Pay the Price ~ John C. Maxwell

You know, I'm really not interested in someone telling me that something's good or bad. ~ John Malkovich

Freedom is not merely a word or an abstract theory, but the most effective instrument for advancing the welfare of man. ~ John F. Kennedy

We see that music, like the world, is formed from unchanging mathematical principles deployed in time, creating complexity, variety and beauty. ~ John Martineau

When the iron is hot, strike. ~ John Heywood

Here I am sitting in the back of a cab with Catherine Zeta-Jones who is telling me Michael Douglas has fond memories of me - it just makes me feel good as a human being. ~ John Schneider

It is illegal for children to purchase tobacco in every state in the country. And in every state ... tobacco companies have invested enormous sums of money and time to encourage widespread lawbreaking. ~ John McCain

but the lead caravan carries an additional line of text: Because survival is insufficient. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights. ~ John Wooden

The modern hero is a person who does something everyone thinks they could do if they were a little stronger, a little faster, a little smarter, or a little more generous. Heroes in ancient times were the link between men and perfect beings, gods. Heroes in modern times are the link between man as he is and man as he could be. ~ John Edwards

And then she said, 'Let's play Truth or Dare' and then you fucked her."
"Wait, you fucked her? In front of the Colonel?" Takumi cried.
"I didn't fuck her."
"Calm down, guys," the Colonel said, throwing up his hands. "It's a euphemism."
"For what?" Takumi asked.
"Kissing. ~ John Green

There is no feeling in this world to be compared with self-reliance
do not sacrifice that to anything else. ~ John D. Rockefeller

You can't stand for Jesus without a Christ-like spirit. ~ John Yates

My father taught only math. ~ John Updike

All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas. ~ John Stuart Mill

John Galt was closer to the genial side of Scott, if with a narrower focus in the material he chose to write about - but for all that giving us, in thin disguise, real places and real changes in a real nation. He dealt above all with the West of Scotland, and was indeed a patriot of the region. It irked him that Edinburgh had won the epithet of Athens of the North and tried to create a fashion for calling Glasgow the Venice of the North; somehow this never caught on. ~ Michael Fry

The devil is a wicked and angry spirit. He will not and cannot stand seeing a man enter the kingdom of God. And if the man undertakes to do so, he blocks the way himself, arousing and attempting every kind of opposition he can summon. If you want to be God's child, therefore, prepare yourself for persecution, as the wise man says. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12, 'All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.' And Christ Himself says (John 15:20): 'The disciple should not be better off than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.' There is no way out, and therefore the statement is: 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,' to let us know how to console ourselves. ~ Martin Luther

I don't need a Rolls Royce, I don't need a house in the country, I don't want to have to live in France. I don't have any rock and roll heroes; they're all useless. The Stones and The Who don't mean anything anymore; they're established. The Stones are more of a business than a band ~ John Lydon

I like the analogy that the way that we live in Western Society, the energy that we consume in the form of fossil fuels, is the energy equivalent in pre-fossil fuel terms of having 500 slaves. ~ John Lindsay

What can be handsomer for a picture than our river scenery now? Take this view from the first Conantum Cliff. ~ John R. Stilgoe

From the front Rdar announces, "Don't you go talking bad about GoFast bars. Do you want me to stop this car?"
"Whenever I eat a GoFast bar," Ben says, "I'm always like, 'So this is what blood tastes like to mosquitoes. ~ John Green

The things about you I appreciate
May seem indelicate:
I'd like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I'd like to have you in my power
And see your eyes dilate.
I'd like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
Or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I'd like successfully to guess your weight
And win you at a fête.
I'd like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I'd like your particulars in folders
Marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
In rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work.
On hinges …

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I'd like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I'd like to give you just the right amount
And get some change.

I ~ John Fuller

I'd also made the first tennis team. I was number two player in the school at 11 years of age and that didn't sit very well with people. ~ John Newcombe

If any of those who were awakened by my ministry, did after that fall back (as sometimes too many did), I can truly say, their loss hath been more to me, than if one of my own children, begotten of my own body, had been going to its grave: ~ John Bunyan

He'd been drinking in a bar downtown, when he thought he heard a choir of angels singing in the Tiki Lounge. And that's when he got religion. ~ Elton John

When part of this ecosystem was lacking, such as for John Atanasoff at Iowa State or Charles Babbage in the shed behind his London home, great concepts ended up being consigned to history's basement. And when great teams lacked passionate visionaries, such as Penn after Mauchly and Eckert left, Princeton after von Neumann, or Bell Labs after Shockley, innovation slowly withered. ~ Walter Isaacson

The government generally is just too top-heavy. ~ John McAfee

For still the new transcends the old In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves! ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite
variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite
energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not. ~ John Ruskin

I'll let you in on a secret: I can't stand Jay Ward. I hate being compared to Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's just a different style of humor. ~ John Kricfalusi

I couldn't sing to save myself. Greg went to John after the audition and said, 'She's cute, but she can't sing very well' and he said, 'I know. We'll teach her. I just want her on the show'. ~ Dannii Minogue

Pretty much everybody knows there are not enough organs for all of those patients who need to get transplants, and what happens is, is that organs are actually directed in liver transplantation to those patients who are the sickest. So the patients who have the greatest chance of dying in the next three months or so are the ones who get the priority for the liver transplant. ~ John Roberts

An object imbued with intent - it has power, it's treasure, we're drawn to it. An object devoid of intent - it's random, it's imitative, it repels us. It's like a piece of junk mail to be thrown away. ~ John Hockenberry

Young or old, a writer sends a book into the world, not himself. ~ John Updike

We really do have a lot of personality in WWE. You have to, to be in this job. You showcase a lot of personality. ~ John Cena

Lizards flashed up the pine-trunks like living emerald necklaces. ~ John Fowles

Stalin's postwar goals were security for himself, his regime, his country, and his ideology, in precisely that order. ~ John Lewis Gaddis

Guilt is a huge player in the way blacks and whites relate to each other. It's huge and deadly when it is denied. It's huge and deadly when it is wallowed in. It's huge and deadly when it is exploited. There is no deliverance and no relief and no healing in any of those ways of dealing with guilt. Denial drives it below the surface where it creates endless illusions and self-justifications. Wallowing in it produces phony humility and obsequiousness and moral cowardice. Exploiting it gives a false sense of power that turns out to be only the weapon of weakness. If guilt is not dealt with more deeply, there will be no way forward. ~ John Piper

Have you swallowed all that war stuff?"
"No, of course I--" I was so committed to refuting him that I had half-denied the charge before I understood it; now my eyes swung back to his face. "All what war stuff?"
"All that stuff about there being a war."
"I don't think I get what you mean."
"Do you really think that the United States of America is in a state of war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan?"
"Do I really think..." My voice trailed off.
He stood up, his weight on the good leg, the other resting lightly on the floor in front of him. "Don't be a sap," he gazed with cool self-possession at me, "there isn't any war."
"I know why you're talking like this," I said, struggling to keep up with him. "Now I understand. You're still under the influence of some medicinal drug."
"No, you are. Everybody is." He pivoted so that he was facing directly at me. "That's what this whole war story is. A medicinal drug. Listen, did you ever hear of the 'Roaring Twenties'?" I nodded very slowly and cautiously. "When they all drank bathtub gin and everybody who was young did just was they wanted?"
"Yes."
"Well, what happened was that they didn't like that, the preachers and the old ladies and all the stuffed shirts. So then they tried Prohibition and everybody just got drunker, so then they really got desperate and arranged the Depression. That kept the people who were young in the thirties in their places. But they couldn't use that trick fo ~ John Knowles