Themes

"An interesting line of research by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist suggests that the most creative people in many fields are usually introverts. This is probably because introverts are comfortable spending time alone, and solitude is a crucial (and underrated) ingredient for creativity."

"Introversion has its annoying qualities, too, of course. ...But I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward. In our culture, snails are not considered valiant animals – we are constantly exhorting people to “come out of their shells” – but there’s a lot to be said for taking your home with you wherever you go."

"Introverts are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness."

"Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice? ... If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands."

"Many introverts feel there’s something wrong with them, and try to pass as extroverts. But whenever you try to pass as something you’re not, you lose a part of yourself along the way."

"Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say "Hell is other people at breakfast." Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring...This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses.""

"Most schools and workplaces now organize workers and students into groups, believing that creativity and productivity comes from a gregarious place. This is nonsense, of course. From Darwin to Picasso to Dr. Seuss, our greatest thinkers have often worked in solitude."

"Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours."

"How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it's not a choice. It's not a lifestyle. It's an orientation. Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don't say "What's the matter?" or "Are you all right?" Third, don't say anything else, either."

"For the true Sloane Ranger, the scarf must be designed by Hermès and tied beneath the chin like a guardsman's chinstrap."

"Hence away, you Sirens, leave me, And unclasp your wanton arms; Sug’red words shall ne’er deceive me Though you prove a thousand charms. Fie, fie, forbear; No common snare Could ever my affection chain; Your painted baits And poor deceits Are all bestowed on me in vain."

"Hamlet [to Yorick's skull]: Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that."

"But one admirer has the painted lass; Nor finds that one, but in her looking-glass: Yet Laura’s beautiful to such excess, That all her art scarce makes her please us less. To deck the female cheek, he only knows, Who paints less fair the lily, and the rose.How gay they smile! Such blessings nature pours, O’erstock’d mankind enjoy but half her stores: In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen, She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green: Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace, And waste their music on the savage race. Is nature then a niggard of her bliss? Repine we guiltless in a world like this? But our lewd tastes her lawful charms refuse, And painted art’s depraved allurements choose."

"This Casket India’s glowing Gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box. The Tortoise here and Elephant unite, Transform’d to Combs, the speckled and the white. Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows, Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux. Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms; The Fair each moment rises in her Charms."

"A painted Whoore, the maske of deadly sin, Sweet faire without, and stinking foule within."

"Go see the wholesome Country Girles make hay, Whose browne hath lovelier grace, Than any painted face, That I doe know Hyde-Parke can show."

"The French succeeded because the new upwardly mobile and socially anxious classes were remarkably similar around the world. American yuppies, French bon chic bon, English Sloane Rangers, Japanese roppongi, and Russian neocapitalists all needed similar signature goods. They all traveled, so they all needed luggage."

"Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden, so too, the bhikkhu becomes content with robes to protect his body and with almsfood to maintain his stomach, and wherever he goes he sets out taking only these with him. Possessing this aggregate of noble virtue, he experiences within himself a bliss that is blameless."

"Or he might say: 'Whereas some recluses and brahmins, while living on the food offered by the faithful, enjoy the use of such devices for embellishing and beautifying themselves as the following: rubbing scented powders into the body, massaging with oils, bathing in perfumed water, kneading the limbs, mirrors, ointments, garlands, scents, unguents, face-powders, make-up, bracelets, head-bands, decorated walking sticks, ornamented medicine-tubes, rapiers, sunshades, embroidered sandals, turbans, diadems, yaktail whisks, and long-fringed white robes — the recluse Gotama abstains from the use of such devices for embellishment and beautification.'"

"This is back in the days when you kind of look at the can and there's no major skull and crossbones on it. So you think, 'This is OK to spray on someone's face.' Nowadays it's a whole different ballgame when it comes to safety and safety data sheets and all that. But back then, you'd smell it and go, 'It's extremely flammable, and there's some smoke skull and crossbones down here, but I think we'll be OK.'"

"Marked with life, stuffed to the gills, saved for, bruised, and cherished like a child, a good bag becomes an intimate extension of the body."

"Leather is the quintessential material of the luxury handbag – the more rare and supple the leather, the more desirable the bag and the higher the accompanying price tag."

"Riches are the baggage of virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, but they hinder the march."

"The British Empress Victoria's bedroom was always adorned with gold silk-brocade of Varanasi and Mysore silks."

"The origin of carpet-making must be sought in Central Asia, where they were woven by Turkish nomads who then brought the technique with them to the Middle East."

"A carpet is the soul of an apartment."

"By means of [the microscope and the telescope] man touched, one might say, the two infinities. With the aid of glass, he could contemplate at his leisure the mite and the ring of Saturn. […] Master of glass through fire, and master of light through glass, he had lenses and mirrors of all kinds, prisms, containers, beakers, tubes, and finally barometers and thermometers. However all this originally began with the astronomical lens, which honours glass; and physics is born in some manner from astronomy, as it was written that, even in a material and gross sense, all science must descend from heaven."

"The ancient glass making techniques which originated on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean before the advent of Islam, incorporated practices from Roman techniques found in Syria, and Egyptian techniques dating back to 1555 B.C."

"In the textile art of India, indigenous motifs are described to be "ageless" as they seem to possess marvelous sense of aesthetics true for all times like lotus, the serpent, the elephant, the chakrā or cakrā, certain trees and so forth."

"Work—work—work Till the brain begins to swim! Work—work—work Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam,— Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream! O Men, with sisters dear! O Men, with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch—stitch—stitch In poverty, hunger, and dirt,— Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt."

"The worldwide rise in demand for Indian leather products and the entrepreneurial responses to this by Muslim tanners have led to the rapid accumulation of considerable capital and to new portfolios of Muslim investment in agribusiness and property."

"The history of ceramic production in the medieval Muslim world, from the period of the Umayyads in the seventh century to the Ottomans and Safavids in the seventeenth century, attests to the superior creativity and experimentation of Islamic potters, demonstrated through their innovations in shape and design, clay recipes, glazes, and techniques of decoration."

"You could see the glass half-full or half-empty, but it's better to simply drink the water in it."

"God is for man the commonplace book where he registers his highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical album into which he enters the names of the things most dear and sacred to him."

"Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end, early modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book. They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities. They belonged to a continuous effort to make sense of things, for the world was full of signs: you could read your way through it; and by keeping an account of your readings, you made a book of your own, one stamped with your personality."

"Just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. In its most customary form, “commonplacing,” as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. ... The great minds of the period—Milton, Bacon, Locke—were zealous believers in the memory-enhancing powers of the commonplace book. There is a distinct self-help quality to the early descriptions of commonplacing’s virtues: in the words of one advocate, maintaining the books enabled one to “lay up a fund of knowledge, from which we may at all times select what is useful in the several pursuits of life.”"

"Yet it is of Service to have Collections of this Kind, both that Students may learn the Art of putting Things in Order, as also the better retain what they Read."

"When I meet with any thing, that I think fit to put into my common-place-book, I first find a proper head. Suppose for example that the head be EPISTOLA, I look unto the index for the first letter and the following vowel which in this instance are E. i. if in the space marked E. i. there is any number that directs me to the page designed for words that begin with an E and whose first vowel after the initial letter is I, I must then write under the word Epistola in that page what I have to remark."

"The wise man will sit and collect the good saying and deeds of the prudent, as a gleaner his gleanings."

"Yes, We and I think it’s an obscene amount of money. You know we had some protesters and last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right, it’s an obscene amount of money. The Sanders campaign, when they talk about it, is absolutely right, it’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics I agree."

"As a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the very particular sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population — that is, the people that I’d entered public life to serve."

"Pick a Partner, not a Firm. When you raise money, you also get an investor. Make sure you get the partner that you believe will add value and be good to work with. Don’t allow the choice of partner to be made by the firm. Find out from other founders who at each firm is the good person to work with. Make sure they’re going to be with the firm for the long-term. Then approach them."

"You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them."

"There is nothing more deplorable than those skeptics and reformers, liberal priests and humanistically-oriented scholars, who moan about “soullessness,” “barren materialism,” what is “unsatisfying in mere science,” and the “cold play of atoms,” and renounce intellectual precision, which is for them only a slight temptation. Then, with the help of some alleged “emotional knowledge” to satisfy the feelings, and with the “necessary” harmony and rounding-out of the world picture, all they invent is some universal spirit: a world-soul, or a God, who is nothing more than the world of the academic petite bourgeoisie which gives rise to him; at best, an oversoul who reads the newspaper and demonstrates a certain appreciation of social questions."

"The making of things to a high measure of accuracy is not just a test of workmanship. It is a fundamental to service production. In such production there can be no fitting of parts in assemblies or in repairs. Every crankshaft must be exactly like any other crankshaft. Of course no two parts are ever absolutely alike, except by accident, for it does not pay to try for accuracy beyond a certain point. But any kind of a machine which has moving parts must be accurately made or there will be an amount of vibration through play that will shorten the life of the machine and also decrease its running efficiency."

"The cost of perfection is infinite in terms of time and in terms of resources. So you're always going to have to make some judgment call about how reliable is a source, or, um, how many experts do you want to contact before you're ok with this."

"It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits."

"Without minute neatness of execution the sublime cannot exist. Grandeur of ideas is precision of ideas. Singular and particular detail is the foundation of the sublime."

"Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse."

"Equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."