Disregarding any other philosophical considerations, self-congratulation is delusional simply because everyone practices it (i.e. shows how shaky a proposal it is to rely on anyone’s approval - which roughly is the ultimate underlying motivation for it).
Stating that the “middle way” should be followed is the emptiest form of wisdom. Akin to giving up completely. At best, you can speak of the “middle way” only a posteriori.
Some people are surprised when they find extreme arrogance in the very same person they thought of as humble and diffident. They should not be surprised at all, for if humbleness serves them any purpose, it is to show them the absurdity, vanity and lack of consistency surrounding them (in which they do not take any part). The important thing is that you will always be able to get through to such a person. The merely arrogant will never change his mind.
I’ll take cultural differences leading to squabbling politicians any day over cultural affinities leading to “harmony”, cartels, collusion of interests etc.
Narrow passions are a sign of narrow minds (those of people who can’t see behind the details that everything is just more of the same). Hopefully someone else didn’t say this before - I can certainly see it behind many things/writings.
I’m not sure why investors like the countries that can print their way out of debt better. As if they were really getting their money back.
“The tourist is almost the exact opposite of the philosopher.” — Very approximate quote from Nassim N. Taleb; if he disowns this quote, I’ll gladly assume ownership.
The empty is the most potentially evil (the first thing that grows in there will be unstoppable).
Knowledge: Sacrificing depth for breadth is usually a desirable compromise (…which will give you depth).
Autotelism: Something that idiots never experience.
“For it is neither love nor money that makes the world go ’round - but vanity.” — Bonner, W. & Wiggin, A. (2009). The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble.
Corollary to the “Dunning–Kruger effect”: If one does not entertain, in any enterprise, for a significant amount of time, the idea that the [“bad side” of the] “Dunning–Kruger effect” may apply to oneself, then it likely does. :P
“If you try to hide the complexity of the system, you’ll end up with a more complex system. Layers of abstraction that serve to hide internals are never a good thing. Instead, the internals should be designed in a way such that they NEED no hiding.” — Aaron Griffin
“Don’t duck pain. It’s precious, it’s your gold mine, it’s the gold in your mine.” — Richard G. Stern
“I found not quite to my liking the two lines in your letter where you say that you feel no remorse at all for the act you committed in the bank. There is something higher than the conclusions of reason and the ever-present extenuating circumstances, something to which everyone is subject (that is, again something similar to a banner). Perhaps you are sufficiently intelligent not to take offense at the frankness and unsolicited nature of my remark. First of all, I myself am no better than you or anyone else (and this is not at all false modesty, what would that bring me?), and secondly, if I justify you in my own way in my heart (as I invite you to justify me), then it is still better if I justify you rather than you justify yourself.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky (letter to G. A. Kovner, 1877)