Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 45 “You can outsource your thinking but you cannot outsource your understanding. ” ―  Yacine Brahimi     G ained wider attention after Andrej Karpathy quoted and repeatedly cited it.     Related:   “ What I cannot create, I do not understand. ” ― Richard Feynman   Quote of the Week 20/2026 “The map is not the territory. ” ―  Alfred Korzybski   Knowledge can be taught; lived understanding cannot.   See also:  Erfahrung // Experience

Quote of the Week 44 “The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. ” ― B. F. Skinner     See Quote Investigator for background information.     Related:   “ The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ” ―  Sydney J. Harris     “ We do not fear the AI that thinks like a human, but humanity that thinks like an AI. ” ― Julian Goldstahl ( German AIngst )     “ Wir fürchten nicht die KI, die denkt wie ein Mensch, sondern die Menschheit, die denkt wie eine KI. ”  

Quote of the Week 43 “Aesthetic sympathy is projecting reflections of my own personality onto every beautiful object I perceive. ” ― Theodor Lipps   Triggered by the citation in  Lipps on Empathy and the Aesthetics of Language: The Origins of a Research Program by D avid Romand : “Aesthetic sympathy is relocating impulses of my own personality into every beautiful object that I perceive. ” ― Theodor Lipps     Source: Die ethischen Grundfragen :   Zehn Vorträge , Theodor Lipps, 1. Auflage, 1899. Aller ästhetische Genuss beruht auf solcher Sympathie.    Ich verlege reproduzierte Regungen meiner eigenen Persönlichkeit in jedes wahrgenommene schöne Objekt,  z.B. in die Landschaft, in die Formen der Architektur, in die Klänge und den Rhythmus der Musik, auch schon in die einfache Linie oder Farbe.    Ich "beseele" diese Objekte, genau in dem Sinne, in dem ich den wahrgenommenen menschlichen Körper beseele.   Ich genieße mich selbst, nic...

Quote of the Week 42 “ After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ” ―  Aldous Huxley , Music at Night and Other Essays         As cited in  Kierkegaard on the Spiritual and Sensual Power of Music, the Essence of Genius, and the Key to a Timeless Work of Art .     See  Great Writers on the Power of Music  for more quotes on music.    “ Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. ” ― Victor Hugo     “Music is at once the most wonderful, the most alive of all the arts — it is the most abstract, the most perfect, the most pure — and the most sensual. I listen with my body and it is my body that aches in response to the passion and pathos embodied in this music.” ― Susan Sontag   “ Without music life would be a mistake. ” ―  Friedrich Nietzsche        

Quote of the Week 41 “ Never write if you can speak;  never speak if you can nod;  never nod if you can wink .” ― attributed to   Martin Lomasney    Variant : “ Never write if you can speak;  never speak if you can nod;  never nod if you can blink .”     Extended version : “ ...; never wink if you can do nothing .”   Modern variant : “ Never write when you can talk.  Never talk when you can nod.  And never put anything in an e-mail. .”   ― attributed to Eliot Spitzer       Abbreviated variant :   “ Don’t write when you can talk;  don’t talk when you can nod your head. ” ― Martin Lomasney   Long variant : “Don't write anything you can phone.  Don't phone anything you can talk.  Don't talk anything you can whisper.  Don't whisper anything you can smile.  Don't smile anything you can nod.  Don't nod anything you can wink.” ― Earl Long

Quote of the Week 40 “ You got me wanting more when less is what I need. ” ―  Richard Macintyre, SIIGA , "The LCD" - Song Lyrics       Interpretation by ChatGPT:   SIIGA’s “The LCD,”  is  a song about   digital overstimulation and the strange emptiness it creates . At its core, it is about a person caught in a feedback loop: screen → stimulation → desire → more consumption → less satisfaction → more stimulation. The lyrics repeatedly juxtapose   wanting   and   needing . The speaker wants   more , but senses that what they actually need is   less . That makes the song less a straightforward anti-technology statement than a portrait of   addiction to excess —more content, more attention, more connection, more distraction. The   “LCD”   itself works nicely on two levels: LCD = Liquid Crystal Display   — the screen through which this world is experienced. LCD = Lowest Common Denominator   — potentiall...

2nd Quote of the Week 39 “ A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do. ” ― Bob Dylan     h/t Jacka  

Quote of the Week 39 “ Doing is like wanting, but bolder. ” ― Alan Bipe (free translation of a German  Sponti saying )      

Quote of the Week 38 “ If you want a new idea, read an old book. ” ― attributed to   Ivan Pavlov

Quote of the Week 37 “ There is nothing you keep, there is only your reflection. ” ―  John Andrew Hull , Manchester Orchestra , “ The Silence ” ( Song Lyrics )     Triggered by my switch back to Spotify from Apple Music — with all my old playlists intact. Related: Quote of the Week 3/2021 " You can go anywhere but you are where you came from. " ―  John Andrew Hull, Manchester Orchestra, “ The Silence ” ( Song Lyrics )

Quote of the Week 36 “ Do it or do not do it — you will regret both. ” ― Søren Kierkegaard     Triggered by Shreyas Doshi 's  repost on X: You'll regret it if you get married, you'll regret it if you don't get married. You'll regret it if you have kids and you'll regret it if you don't. Kierkegaard said this 200 years ago as follows - whatever you choose, you'll regret it, because the problem isn't in your choices,… https://t.co/y9BEyLjsc1 — blue (@bluewmist) August 25, 2026   Full quote (per Claude.ai): Here's the full passage from  Either/Or  (1843). "Marry, and you will regret it; don't marry, you will also regret it; marry or don't marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world's foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world's foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yours...