Sunday, 9 August

Two thoughts from Garry Kasparov

“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”

“Dictatorships must be feared to survive so they cannot bear to be mocked.”

Monday, 10 August

Two thoughts from Rahel Varnhagen

“What am I doing? Nothing. I am letting life rain upon me.”

“Hope for forces which you do not yet have. That is what is most impossible, and nevertheless possible.”

Tuesday, 11 August

Two thoughts from Poul Anderson

“Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.”

“A fanatic’s willingness to kill or be killed in the service of a cause cannot prove the rightness of that cause.”

Wednesday, 12 August

Two thoughts from Frédéric Gros

“Discipline is the impossible conquered by the obstinate repetition of the possible.”

“The illusion of speed is the belief that it saves time...but haste and speed accelerate time, which passes more quickly, and two hours of hurry shorten a day”

Thursday, 13 August

Two thoughts from Marshall Goldsmith

“What got you here won’t get you there.”

“If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.”

Friday, 14 August

Two thoughts from Paul Erdős

“It is not enough to be in the right place at the right time. You should also have an open mind at the right time.”

“God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.”

Saturday, 15 August

Two thoughts from Morgan Richard Olivier

“Your mind is a compass. Wherever your mind goes, your actions or reactions will ultimately take you.”

“When people reveal themselves,

believe them.

Stop painting prettier pictures

with the red flags you see.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 2 August

Two thoughts from Barry Schwartz

“Happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.”

“Ninety percent of adults spend half their waking lives doing things they would rather not be doing at places they would rather not be.”

Monday, 3 August

Two thoughts from Patrick Winston

“Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas—in that order.”

“Salute the audience.”

Tuesday, 4 August

Two thoughts from Marvin Minsky

“In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.”

“One can acquire certainty only by amputating inquiry.”

Wednesday, 5 August

Two thoughts from Roger Schank

“Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.”

“Learning happens when someone wants to learn, not when someone wants to teach.”

Thursday, 6 August

Two thoughts from Donald Knuth

“The language in which we express our ideas has a strong influence on our thought processes.”

“Premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

Friday, 7 August

Two thoughts from Christopher Alexander

“Making something beautiful is not a new thing or an old thing. It is a constant thing.”

“Simplicity and inner calm are more important than complexity and superficial agitation in architecture.”

Saturday, 8 August

Two thoughts from Annie Dillard

“If you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not.”

“You can’t test courage cautiously.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 26 July

Two thoughts from Lenny Bruce

“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it...try to fake three laughs in an hour -- ha ha ha ha ha -- they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.”

“I was not born in a vacuum. Every thought I have belongs to someone else.”

Monday, 27 July

Two thoughts from Bill Hicks

“Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye.”

“Listen, the next revolution is gonna be a revolution of ideas.”

Tuesday, 28 July

Two thoughts from Mae West

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”

Wednesday, 29 July

Two thoughts from Mort Sahl

“That feeling of hopelessness only serves your masters.”

“One thing about being narrow-minded: you’ll never be lonely.”

Thursday, 30 July

Two thoughts from Friedrich Hayek

“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.”

“From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.”

Friday, 31 July

Two thoughts from Itzhak Bentov

“The more you know, the more ignorant you become, because ignorance grows exponentially—the more answers you get, the more new questions arise.”

“The Soul is repository of information that we gather during a lifetime.”

Saturday, 1 August

Two thoughts from Vernor Vinge

“Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.”

“He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 19 July

Two thoughts from Hilaire Belloc

“Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.”

“I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.”

Monday, 20 July

Two thoughts from Lera Boroditsky

“Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000.”

“The language that you speak shapes the way that you think.”

Tuesday, 21 July

Two thoughts from Terry Southern

“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish.”

“There is no power on earth that can loosen a man’s grip on his own throat.”

Wednesday, 22 July

Two thoughts from Anthony Bourdain

“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.”

“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

Thursday, 23 July

Two thoughts from Lewis Mumford

“Life is an art we are required to practice without preparation, a score that we play at sight even before we have mastered our instruments.”

“Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life’s absurdities by thinking absurdly about them.”

Friday, 24 July

Two thoughts from Alfred North Whitehead

“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”

“The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, “Seek simplicity and distrust it.”

Saturday, 25 July

Two thoughts from Bertrand Russell

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.”

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 12 July

Two thoughts from Rabindranath Tagore

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”

“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”

Monday, 13 July

Two thoughts from Doris Lessing

“People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.”

“Parents should leave books lying around marked “forbidden” if they want their children to read.”

Tuesday, 14 July

Two thoughts from Orhan Pamuk

“The past is always an invented land.”

“Censorship should never be allowed. One should be able to say anything. But I refuse to let politics be foisted on me.”

Wednesday, 15 July

Two thoughts from Edmund Burke

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”

“Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”

Thursday, 16 July

Two thoughts from W.B. Yeats

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

“All empty souls tend to extreme opinion.”

Friday, 17 July

Two thoughts from John Keats

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.”

“I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds.”

Saturday, 18 July

Two thoughts from Hunter S. Thompson

“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

“Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 5 July

Two thoughts from Thomas Paine

“A hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor or mathematician.”

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason...is like administering medicine to the dead.”

Monday, 6 July

Two thoughts from J. G. Ballard

“Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.”

“I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic.”

Tuesday, 7 July

Two thoughts from Robert Pirsig

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”

“The more you look, the more you see.”

Wednesday, 8 July

Two thoughts from Hermann Hesse

“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”

Thursday, 9 July

Two thoughts from Thomas Mann

“Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.”

“Order and simplification are the first steps towards mastery of a subject.”

Friday, 10 July

Two thoughts from Arthur Schnitzler

“To be ready is one thing, to be able to wait is another; but to seize the right moment is everything.”

“Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief.”

Saturday, 11 July

Two thoughts from Stefan Zweig

“One must be convinced to convince, to have enthusiasm to stimulate the others.”

“Beware of pity.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

O'Shaughnessy Fellow Jan Jedryszek has cofounded Biotic, a public-benefit nonprofit working to ensure that all people and the planet benefit from world‑leading biotechnologies.

Biotic launches alongside SpudCell, a cell built from scratch out of non-living chemicals that can grow, copy its DNA, and divide. SpudCell was created by fellow Biotic cofounder Kate Adamala and her team at the University of Minnesota. The breakthrough was featured by The New York Times this week.

Read more at biotic.org.

Sunday, 28 June

Two thoughts from David Cronenberg

“Technology is us. There is no separation. It’s a pure expression of human creative will. It doesn’t exist anywhere else in the universe. I’m rather sure of that.”

“Everybody’s a mad scientist, and life is their lab.”

Monday, 29 June

Two thoughts from Michael Crichton

“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”

“Men under stress are fools, and fool themselves.”

Tuesday, 30 June

Two thoughts from Michael Connelly

“What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures?”

“It’s only a wonderful world if you can make it that way. There are no street signs pointing to Paradise Road.”

Wednesday, 1 July

Two thoughts from Leo Tolstoy

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing — and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.”

Thursday, 2 July

Two thoughts from Jim Morrison

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.”

“Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel.”

Friday, 3 July

Two thoughts from Carrie Jones

“The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.”

“It’s hard to save the world when you can’t save yourself.”

Saturday, 4 July

Two thoughts from Patrick Henry

“Give me liberty, or give me death!”

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 21 June

Two thoughts from Hilary Mantel

“It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”

“Insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.”

Monday, 22 June

Two thoughts from Alexis de Tocqueville

“It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.”

“A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.”

Tuesday, 23 June

Two thoughts from Joe Henrich

“Perhaps you are WEIRD, raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. If so, you’re likely rather psychologically peculiar.”

“We are a cultural species.”

Wednesday, 24 June

Two thoughts from Roger Scruton

“Intellectuals are naturally attracted by the idea of a planned society, in the belief that they will be in charge of it.”

“The best evidence of a mind is when you change it.”

Thursday, 25 June

Two thoughts from Adrian A. Gill

“The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.”

“America is Europe’s greatest invention.”

Friday, 26 June

Two thoughts from Denis Johnson

“Write the unpublishable...and then publish it.”

“I make the road. I draw the map. Nothing just happens to me...I’m the one happening.”

Saturday, 27 June

Two thoughts from Don DeLillo

“As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.”

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 14 June

Two thoughts from Andrew Marvell

“Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns.”

“Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.”

Monday, 15 June

Two thoughts from James Cameron

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”

“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own. Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality.”

Tuesday, 16 June

Two thoughts from Oscar Levant

“Happiness isn’t something you experience, it’s something you remember.”

“It’d be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view.”

Wednesday, 17 June

Two thoughts from Christopher Hitchens

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”

Thursday, 18 June

Two thoughts from Joan Didion

“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.”

“We are the stories we tell ourselves.”

Friday, 19 June

Two thoughts from Charles Bukowski

“The free soul is rare—but you know it when you see it—basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”

“Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”

Saturday, 20 June

Two thoughts from Marcel Proust

“It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, we make our irrevocable decisions.”

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Sunday, 7 June

Two thoughts from Henri Bergson

“The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”

“the human mind is so constructed that it cannot begin to understand the new until it has done everything in its power to relate it to the old.”

Monday, 8 June

Two thoughts from André Gide

“There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.”

“Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.”

Tuesday, 9 June

Two thoughts from Henry Miller

“I learned more from idiots and nobodies than from professors of this and that. Life is the teacher, not the Board of Education.”

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

Wednesday, 10 June

Two thoughts from Jorge Luis Borges

“Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.”

“Only in the present do things happen.”

Thursday, 11 June

Two thoughts from Pablo Neruda

“Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.”

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”

Friday, 12 June

Two thoughts from John Dryden

“Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong.”

“Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.”

Saturday, 13 June

Two thoughts from John Donne

“Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.”

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Grab your copy of Two Thoughts: A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom today:

• Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle & audiobook)

• Barnes & Noble (paperback, eBook & audiobook)

• Spotify (audiobook)

• Our website (complete bundle or signed collector’s edition)

Sunday, 31 May

Two thoughts from Orson Welles

“I don’t say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.”

“Many people are well-mannered enough not to speak with their mouths full, but they have no qualms about doing so with their heads empty.”

Monday, 1 June

Two thoughts from Roald Dahl

“Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.”

“Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog.”

Tuesday, 2 June

Two thoughts from Robert Heinlein

“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”

“Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.”

Wednesday, 3 June

Two thoughts from Frans de Waal

“The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.”

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science...is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.”

Thursday, 4 June

Two thoughts from Heinrich Heine

“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.”

“A brainiac notices everything, an ignoramus comments about everything.”

Friday, 5 June

Two thoughts from Kurt Tucholsky

“The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb. The opposite is more difficult.”

“A country is not only what it does but what it tolerates.”

Saturday, 6 June

Two thoughts from John Muir

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Grab your copy of Two Thoughts: A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom today:

• Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle & audiobook)

• Barnes & Noble (paperback, eBook & audiobook)

• Spotify (audiobook)

• Our website (complete bundle or signed collector’s edition)

Sunday, 24 May

Two thoughts from Groucho Marx

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

“Why a four-year-old child could understand this report! Run out and find me a four-year-old child, I can’t make head or tail of it.”

Monday, 25 May

Two thoughts from Robert K. Merton

“Anticipatory plagiarism occurs when someone steals your original idea and publishes it a hundred years before you were born.”

“Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.”

Tuesday, 26 May

Two thoughts from David Mamet

“Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due.”

“Train yourself for a profession that does not [yet] exist.”

Wednesday, 27 May

Two thoughts from Martha Nussbaum

“Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.”

“Another problem with people who fail to examine themselves is that they often prove all too easily influenced.”

Thursday, 28 May

Two thoughts from Kevin Kelly

“At this point in our history, sharing something that has not been shared before, or in a new way, is the surest way to increase its value.”

“Any believable prediction will be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable.”

Friday, 29 May

Two thoughts from Charlie Chaplin

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world — not even our troubles.”

“Human beings...want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone.”

Saturday, 30 May

Two thoughts from Lucille Ball

“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret
the things I haven’t done.”

“I believe that we’re as happy in life as we make
up our minds to be.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Grab your copy of Two Thoughts: A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom today:

• Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle & audiobook)

• Barnes & Noble (paperback, eBook & audiobook)

• Spotify (audiobook)

• Our website (complete bundle or signed collector’s edition)

Sunday, 17 May

Two thoughts from George Berkeley

“Few men think; yet all have opinions.”

“We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.”

Monday, 18 May

Two thoughts from Ginni Rometty

“It will not be a world of man versus machine. It will be a world of man plus machines.”

“I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.”

Tuesday, 19 May

Two thoughts from Milton Erickson

“Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.”

“Enlightenment is always preceded by confusion.”

Wednesday, 20 May

Two thoughts from Richard Bandler

“The greatest personal limitation is to be found not in the things you want to do and can’t, but in the things you’ve never considered doing.”

“There are no failures - only feedback.”

Thursday, 21 May

Two thoughts from Gregory Bateson

“We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong.”

“Without context, words and actions have no meaning at all.”

Friday, 22 May

Two thoughts from Margaret Mead

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”

Saturday, 23 May

Two thoughts from Anthony Doerr

“A real diamond, his father used to say, is never entirely free of inclusions. A real diamond is never perfect.”

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Dispatches From Grief is out now. We’re offering a limited number of US-based readers an additional free copy, signed by Danielle, so you can pass one along while always having your own to return to. Simply buy any edition from our website, Amazon, or any other bookstore, then email your proof of purchase and shipping address to contact@infinitebooks.com. We’ll take care of the rest.

Sunday, 10 May

Two thoughts from Anaïs Nin

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

Monday, 11 May

Two thoughts from Charles Babbage

“At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes abridged.”

“Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.”

Tuesday, 12 May

Two thoughts from Eugene Wigner

“Solipsism may be logically consistent with present Quantum Mechanics, Monism in the sense of Materialism is not.”

“I believe that the present laws of physics are at least incomplete without a translation into terms of mental phenomena.”

Wednesday, 13 May

Two thoughts from Stendhal

“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.”

“Misery destroys judgment.”

Thursday, 14 May

Two thoughts from Dave Eggers

“Be strong, be brave, be true. Endure.”

“Humans are divided between those who can still look through the eyes of youth and those who cannot.”

Friday, 15 May

Two thoughts from Pip Williams

“Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us.”

“Our thinking was limited by convention (the most subtle but oppressive dictator).”

Saturday, 16 May

Two thoughts from Michael Moritz

“I think the notion of retirement is just a dreadful, dreadful idea and I hope I never have to do that.”

“We can change only as fast as the rest of society will change.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Dispatches From Grief is out now. As a gift to our subscribers, we’re offering our first 100 US-based readers an additional free copy, signed by Danielle, so you can pass one along while always having your own to return to. Simply buy any edition from our website, Amazon, or any other bookstore, then email your proof of purchase and shipping address to contact@infinitebooks.com. We’ll take care of the rest.

Sunday, 3 May

Two thoughts from John Maynard Smith

“You couldn’t have human society without language.”

“Language changes very fast.”

Monday, 4 May

Two thoughts from Jean Cocteau

“Mirrors would do well to reflect a little more before sending back images.”

“One must not mistake majority for truth.”

Tuesday, 5 May

Two thoughts from George Leonard

“To be a learner, you’ve got to be willing to be a fool.”

“Our preoccupation with goals, results, and the quick fix has separated us from our own experiences.”

Wednesday, 6 May

Two thoughts from Mark Forsyth

“If you look back far enough, everything is stolen and every country invaded.”

“So Shakespeare stole; but he did wonderful things with his plunder. He’s like somebody who nicks your old socks and then darns them.”

Thursday, 7 May

Two thoughts from Karen Armstrong

“When you feel compassion, you dethrone yourself from the centre of the world.”

“Compassion is not a popular virtue.”

Friday, 8 May

Two thoughts from Balthasar Gracián

“There are rules to luck, not everything is chance for the wise; luck can be helped by skill.”

“Every fool stands convinced; and everyone convinced is a fool. The faultier a person’s judgement the firmer their convictions.”

Saturday, 9 May

Two thoughts from Sinan Aral

“We tend to believe false information more after repeated exposure to it. People also tend to believe what they already think.”

“In the Hype Machine, everyone is a digital marketer, whether we’re fighting for ideas or for consumer dollars.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

After last week's appearance in The Atlantic, Danielle Crittenden’s upcoming memoir, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother’s Journey Through the Unthinkable, was excerpted this week in The Daily Mail.

Early reactions to the book have been remarkable. Here’s New York Times columnist David Brooks:

“Dispatches from Grief moves with the power of a freight train over rough terrain. Danielle Crittenden makes us eyewitnesses to the hour-by-hour crawl through grief. What I will remember forever is the transformation of the griever; the steady, unpredictable process of ripping and restitching; and the resilient enormity of a mother’s love…Crittenden has been through hell, but has not emerged with empty hands.”

Dispatches From Grief will be published by Infinite Books on 5 May. You can pre-order your copy on our website or on Amazon.

Sunday, 26 April

Two thoughts from Seymour Papert

“The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.”

“The reason most kids don’t like school is not that the work is too hard, but that it is utterly boring.”

Monday, 27 April

Two thoughts from Fritz Perls

“We live in a house of mirrors and think we are looking out the windows.”

“If you are bored, you are not paying attention.”

Tuesday, 28 April

Two thoughts from Irvin D. Yalom

“Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.”

“When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.”

Wednesday, 29 April

Two thoughts from Stanislav Grof

“Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena.”

“Each of us can manifest the properties of a field of consciousness that transcends space, time, and linear causality.”

Thursday, 30 April

Two thoughts from Jacob Burckhardt

“The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.”

“It is the historian’s function, not to make us clever for the next time, but to make us wise forever.”

Friday, 1 May

Two thoughts from Walter Pater

“To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”

“Every intellectual product must be judged from the point of view of the age and the people in which it was produced.”

Saturday, 2 May

Two thoughts from Edgar Guest

“If you never take a chance, you will never be defeated - but you will never accomplish anything either.”

“Love has the patience to endure the fault it sees but cannot cure.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

Danielle Crittenden’s upcoming memoir, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother’s Journey Through the Unthinkable, was excerpted this week in The Atlantic: On Losing a Daughter.

The book is a staggering depiction of grief and a beautiful portrayal of the daughter Danielle lost. We’re proud to be publishing it at Infinite Books.

Dispatches From Grief will be published on 5 May. You can pre-order your copy on our website or on Amazon.

Sunday, 19 April

Two thoughts from Rosa Luxemburg

“The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening.”

“Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently.”

Monday, 20 April

Two thoughts from Jean-Luc Godard

“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.”

“It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take things to.”

Tuesday, 21 April

Two thoughts from Stanley Kubrick

“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

“If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.”

Wednesday, 22 April

Two thoughts from Paramahansa Yogananda

“Nothing is impossible unless you think it is.”

“In that power of self-control lies the seed of eternal freedom.”

Thursday, 23 April

Two thoughts from John Holt

“To a very great degree, school is a place where children learn to be stupid.”

“Figuring out what you don’t know or aren’t sure of is the greatest intellectual skill of all.”

Friday, 24 April

Two thoughts from Donna Tartt

“I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”

“The world won’t come to me… so I must go to it.”

Saturday, 25 April

Two thoughts from George Pólya

“It is better to solve one problem five different ways, than to solve five problems one way.”

“Good problems and mushrooms of certain kinds have something in common; they grow in clusters.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

• Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle & audiobook)

• Barnes & Noble (paperback, eBook & audiobook)

• Spotify (audiobook)

• Our website (complete bundle or signed collector’s edition)

Sunday, 12 April

Two thoughts from Wendy Mass

“The trick is that as long as you know who you are and what makes you happy, it doesn’t matter how others see you.”

“The sidelines may be safer but life is played on the field.”

Monday, 13 April

Two thoughts from Dietrich von Hildebrand

“Beauty is the archenemy of mediocrity.”

“Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.”

Tuesday, 14 April

Two thoughts from Gabriel Marcel

“You know you have loved someone when you have glimpsed in them that which is too beautiful to die.”

“The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible.”

Wednesday, 15 April

Two thoughts from E. M. Forster

“A humanist has four leading characteristics: curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.”

“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”

Thursday, 16 April

Two thoughts from Pierre Bourdieu

“Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.”

“Every established order tends to produce the naturalization of its own arbitrariness.”

Friday, 17 April

Two thoughts from Amelia Earhart

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do.”

“Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.”

Saturday, 18 April

Two thoughts from Frederick Douglass

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

• Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle & audiobook)

• Barnes & Noble (paperback, eBook & audiobook)

• Spotify (audiobook)

• Our website (complete bundle or signed collector’s edition)

Sunday, 5 April

Two thoughts from Heimito von Doderer

“In comparison to what I’ve suffered from myself, the humiliation and suffering inflicted on me by others vanishes into insignificance.”

“The exhaustibility of a person is in inverse proportion to their real interests.”

Monday, 6 April

Two thoughts from Haruki Murakami

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

“You don’t have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know.”

Tuesday, 7 April

Two thoughts from William Ernest Henley

“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.”

“Under the bludgeonings of chance,

My head is bloody, but unbowed.”

Wednesday, 8 April

Two thoughts from Donald Miller

“Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.”

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”

Thursday, 9 April

Two thoughts from Publilius Syrus

“Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.”

“Seek to please many, and you seek a failure.”

Friday, 10 April

Two thoughts from Byron Katie

“When I argue with reality, I lose, but only 100% of the time.”

“If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling yourself the story of how it doesn’t.”

Saturday, 11 April

Two thoughts from Michael A. Singer

“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind, you are the one who hears it.”

“It doesn’t matter what others do, unless you decide that it matters to you.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share

• Amazon (hardcover, paperback, Kindle & audiobook)

• Barnes & Noble (paperback, eBook & audiobook)

• Spotify (audiobook)

• Our website (complete bundle or signed collector’s edition)

Sunday, 29 March

Two thoughts from James Michener

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”

“All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.”

Monday, 30 March

Two thoughts from Paul Valéry

“Politics is the art of stopping people from minding their own business.”

“The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.”

Tuesday, 31 March

Two thoughts from Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies.”

“Every book we read must leave us richer or poorer, sadder or happier, safer or more uncertain, but never intact.”

Wednesday, 1 April

Two thoughts from Gaston Bachelard

“It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.”

“Why should the actions of the imagination not be as real as those of perception?”

Thursday, 2 April

Two thoughts from Robert Musil

“The truth is not a crystal that can be slipped into one’s pocket, but an endless current into which one falls headlong.”

“One does what one is; one becomes what one does.”

Friday, 3 April

Two thoughts from Elias Canetti

“No faith that is not surrounded by doubt can survive.”

“The first effect of adjusting to other people is that one becomes boring.”

Saturday, 4 April

Two thoughts from Witold Gombrowicz

“Man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man’s soul, be it even the soul of an idiot.”

“Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom.”

Follow Jim on Twitter for a daily dose of Two Thoughts!

Share