A Quote by Thomas Sowell
One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason.
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The notion that somehow or another they'll (Iran) put it in a picnic basket and hand it to some terrorist group is merely an argument that may be convincing to some people who don't know anything about nuclear weapons. I don't find that argument very credible, I'm not sure that people who make it even believe in it. But it's a good argument to make if you have no other argument to make. The fact of the matter is, Iran has been around for 3000 years, and that is not a symptom of a suicidal instinct.
The one thing that I think separates Microsoft from a lot of other people is we make bold bets. We're persistent about them, but we make them. A lot of people won't make a bold bet. A bold bet doesn't assure you of winning, but if you make no bold bets you can't continue to succeed. Our industry doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels forever. I mean, you can milk any great idea. Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets.
We have had people for so many generations dumbed down, literally dumbed down, who are now in positions of awesome and extreme power with influence over others, that we're paralyzed. And, if we're not paralyzed, we are backtracking and moving backwards. We are actually regressing, I should say, from magnificent progress that we as a nation and a culture and society have taken over hundreds of years.
It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.
The Queen is not supposed to have a favourite or prefer anything. From a very young age, they are taught that if you fall down, you don't make a face; you keep your emotions under control, and you don't let other people know what you're feeling. That's a very different kind of way of thinking from how I was brought up.
I don't always understand other people's motives. I will repeat that for my own benefit, if you don't mind. I don't always understand other people's motives.
The argument by the anti-gay-marriage crowd is so absurd, so internally contradictory, and so awash in unproven assertions that it is difficult to take it as anything more than a construct cobbled together by people who just don't like those people.
People who achieve great things are people who make choices. Far too many people today let life dictate their future instead of the other way around. Choices are hard - that's why so few actually make them. But as the saying goes - not to make a choice is to make a choice. When it comes to choices, The question is - what choices will you make today? The world doesn't care about your problems, or what's holding you back. They don't care about your past failures, or any other obstacles you face. Stop making excuses and start making choices.
After months of lies, the president [Bill Clinton] has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reason. The suspicion some people have about the president's motives in this attack is itself a powerful argument for impeachment.
How many likes you get on a selfie will not be what you remember 10 years down the line. The relationships that you form and the memories that you make and the connections that you make with people day to day are the things you remember.
Even if I don't always behave as I should, this still doesn't explain why so many people have something against me. But you know how it is. A lot of people vent themselves by coming to the stadium to yell at me. I hope it's not racism. I tell myself that it's not racism; it's because I'm tough, and I repeat this to myself.
Most traditional methods of working on oneself are mostly pain centered. People get to repeat over and over their painful emotions without knowing how to use the body's own inherently positive direction and force.
Interruption, incoherence, surprise are the ordinary conditions of our life. They have even become real needs for many people, whose minds are no longer fed by anything but sudden changes and constantly renewed stimuli. We can no longer bear anything that lasts. We no longer know how to make boredom bear fruit. So the whole question comes down to this: can the human mind master what the human mind has made?
I'm not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.
Filmmaking materials are in the hands of more people now than ever before. I would like to think that the more people have these tools, the more people will learn how to use them, it's another argument I would argue for, personally, for art's education. Because there are kids who aren't that literate in screen language and they've got to know how people select shots, how people edit audio, how people combine things to make what they see on the screen. It would be like the 15th century or the 16th century in Germany, and somebody amends a printing press and you don't know how to read and write.
A very tall man once asked a question after my talk. Before beginning his question, he explained that the reason he was standing up is not to be intimidating but rather to make eye contact. His question was essentially "are we really interested in moral motives? Isn't it all about action?". I pointed out to him that it was not enough for him to do the right thing - stand up - but he also wanted me to know that he is doing it from the right motive or for the right reason - to make eye contact, rather than to be intimidating. Voila, moral psychology.
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