The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and NATO, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected.

Taking a walk every day. As Ingmar Bergman said, “Demons hate fresh air."

Create a To-Stop list rather than a To-Do list.

The higher you go in an organization, the more your suggestions become interpreted as orders.

Smart people know what to do. They need to know what to stop.

Hunger is the first element of self-discipline. If you can control what you eat and drink, you can control everything else.

Never reply when you’re angry. Never make a promise when you’re happy. Never make a decision when you’re sad.

"N years of experience" requirements are unnecessary gatekeeping. Smart people can pick up anything quickly, and diverse perspectives are valuable.

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals!

One basic rule of life is that everything is easy with the proper tools, and nearly impossible without them.

The future was better in the past.

Too often, ideas meant to yield a certain practice are instead transported into the academy, as fare for 'enriching' a curriculum and, of course, generating jobs for the growing professoriat.

How come it is easier for us to imagine the end of all life on earth than to imagine a modest change in our economic order?

No SciFi author foresaw this: we are building clans around languages we speak to the Machine.

There is a difference between a consumer—who passively receives the information that they are spoon fed—and a citizen—who engages with society, asks questions, does research, and works towards making a difference in their neighborhood, city, and country.

The most common beginning of disaster was a sense of security.

As I have taught you, persuasion can be ranked like this:

1. Identity (best)
2. Analogy (okay)
3. Reason (useless)

Being smart does not mean being useful. Or employable.

Behavioral economics tells us that we quickly get used to big houses but we never get used to commuting. So when you have a choice, go for the smaller house closer to work.

We live in a country where if you want to go bomb somebody, there’s remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost. But when you have a discussion about whether or not we can assist people who are suffering, then suddenly we come very cost-conscious.