If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.

Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds

They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.

They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)

A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see

The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; some do both; and the wise does neither

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one.

My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism