Sunday, 20 September

Two thoughts from Molière

“A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.”

“The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.”

Monday, 21 September

Two thoughts from William Carlos Williams

“It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it. There lies the secret of the ages.”

“No opinion can be trusted; even the facts may be nothing but a printer’s error.”

Tuesday, 22 September

Two thoughts from Blaise Pascal

“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”

“We never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.”

Wednesday, 23 September

Two thoughts from Larry Page

“Almost everyone who has had an idea that’s somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they’re insane.”

“I find that knowing what’s really happening is more important than trying to control people.”

Thursday, 24 September

Two thoughts from John Updike

“Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.”

“Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.”

Friday, 25 September

Two thoughts from Hans Rosling

“There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”

“Here’s the paradox: the image of a dangerous world has never been broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less violent and more safe.”

Saturday, 26 September

Two thoughts from Klemens von Metternich

“The obvious is always least understood.”

“It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overlap them.”

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Sunday, 13 September

Two thoughts from Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”

“Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.”

Monday, 14 September

Two thoughts from Federico García Lorca

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”

“I know there is no straight road

No straight road in this world

Only a giant labyrinth

Of intersecting crossroads.”

Tuesday, 15 September

Two thoughts from Fernando Pessoa

“Stones in the road? I save every single one, and one day I’ll build a castle.”

“Whether or not they exist we are slaves to our gods.”

Wednesday, 16 September

Two thoughts from John Toland

“It is human nature that repeats itself, not history. We often learn more about the past from the present, in fact, than the reverse.”

“It is easier to start a war than end one.”

Thursday, 17 September

Two thoughts from John Trenchard

“The terrible tendency of publick corruption to ruin a state, exemplified in that of Rome, and applied to our own.”

“Good governors do not consider their people their prey.”

Friday, 18 September

Two thoughts from Algernon Sidney

“Liars need to have good memories.”

“Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small.”

Saturday, 19 September

Two thoughts from Eugène Lonesco

“It isn’t what people think that’s important, but the reason they think what they think.”

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”

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Sunday, 6 September

Two thoughts from Denzel Washington

“I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.”

“Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.”

Monday, 7 September

Two thoughts from Herman Kahn

“Risk-taking is the essence of innovation.”

“I’m against ignorance. I’m against sloppy, emotional thinking. I’m against fashionable thinking. I am against the whole cliché of the moment.”

Tuesday, 8 September

Two thoughts from Ram Dass

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.”

“Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.”

Wednesday, 9 September

Two thoughts from Immanuel Kant

“I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself.”

“Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding — that is the motto of the Enlightenment.”

Thursday, 10 September

Two thoughts from James Madison

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

“The truth was that all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”

Friday, 11 September

Two thoughts from Euripides

“The wisest men follow their own direction And listen to no prophet guiding them. None but the fools believe in oracles, Forsaking their own judgment.”

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”

Saturday, 12 September

Two thoughts from Paul Simon

“All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

“When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school; It’s a wonder I can think at all.”

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Sunday, 30 August

Two thoughts from Washington Irving

“Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.”

“A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.”

Monday, 31 August

Two thoughts from Sun Tzu

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”

Tuesday, 1 September

Two thoughts from Hugh MacLeod

“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.”

“I work extremely hard doing what I love, mainly to ensure that I don’t have to work extremely hard doing what I hate”

Wednesday, 2 September

Two thoughts from Marie Curie

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”

Thursday, 3 September

Two thoughts from Don Miguel Ruiz

“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally... Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.”

“Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions. Always do your best”

Friday, 4 September

Two thoughts from Sebastian Mallaby

“Capitalism works only when institutions are forced to absorb the consequences of the risks that they take on.”

“All new markets are inefficient at first.”

Saturday, 5 September

Two thoughts from James Allen

“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.”

“Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.”

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Sunday, 23 August

Two thoughts from Heraclitus

“Nothing is; everything is Becoming.”

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

Monday, 24 August

Two thoughts from Lin Yutang

“The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.”

“The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world...But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world.”

Tuesday, 25 August

Two thoughts from Giordano Bruno

“I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority! Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven!”

“Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”

Wednesday, 26 August

Two thoughts from Arthur Brooks

“The more control you have over your life, the more responsible you feel for your own success - or failure.”

“Almost no one is ever insulted into agreement.”

Thursday, 27 August

Two thoughts from Mary Oliver

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”

Friday, 28 August

Two thoughts from Edgar Schein

“We do not think and talk about what we see; we see what we are able to think and talk about.”

“Culture constrains strategy.”

Saturday, 29 August

Two thoughts from Marcus Terentius Varro

“No sick man’s monstrous dream can be so wild that some philosopher won’t say it’s true.”

“It was divine nature which gave us the country, and man’s skill that built the cities.”

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Sunday, 16 August

Two thoughts from Daniel Kahneman

“If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism.”

“We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”

Monday, 17 August

Two thoughts from Anne Brontë

“But he who dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose.”

“There are great books in this world and great worlds in books.”

Two thoughts from Georg Simmel

“He is educated who knows how to find out what he doesn’t know.”

“One needs to properly possess only a couple of great thoughts – they shed light on many stretches whose illumination one would never have believed in.”

Tuesday, 18 August

Two thoughts from Walter Benjamin

“We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector.”

“To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.”

Wednesday, 19 August

Two thoughts from Herbert A. Simon

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

“You do not change people’s minds by defeating them with logic.”

Thursday, 20 August

Two thoughts from Keanu Reeves

“The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.”

“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.”

Friday, 21 August

Two thoughts from Viktor Frankl

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

“No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react.”

Saturday, 22 August

Two thoughts from Albert Camus

“The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.”

“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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?”

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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.”

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