“It appears to general observation, that revolutions create genius and talents; but those events do no more than bring them forward. There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition, to the grave. As it is to the advantage of society that the whole of its faculties should be employed, the construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity which never fails to appear in revolutions.” MenShouldStatesWholeGovernmentActionLyingFailingConditionsTalentEventsRevolutionOughtGeniusQuietMassAdvantageCapacityGravesObservationOperationsFacultyConstructionEmployedDormant Book:Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“Historical science is not worse, more restricted, or less capable of achieving firm conclusions because experiment, prediction, and subsumption under invariant laws of nature do not represent its usual working methods. The sciences of history use a different mode of explanation, rooted in the comparative and observational richness in our data. We cannot see a past event directly, but science is usually based on inference, not unvarnished observation (you don't see electrons, gravity, or black holes either).” DifferentUsePastLawBlackAchieveEventsCapableMethodExperimentsHolesConclusionObservationDataFirmExplanationUsualGravityRootedPredictionsLaws Of NatureRichnessBlack HoleElectronsInferencePast Events Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.” IdeasBlackEventsObservationSwansBlack SwanRare Events Author:Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“If one sentence were to sum up the mechanism driving the Great Stagnation, it is this: Recent and current innovation is more geared to private goods than to public goods. That simple observation ties together the three major macroeconomic events of our time: growing income inequality, stagnant median income, and the financial crisis.” IfsTogetherThreeSimpleGrowingEventsMajorsInnovationCrisisFinancialCurrentsSentencesDrivingIncomeObservationInequalityTiesOur TimeGoodsMechanismStagnationStagnantFinancial CrisisIncome InequalityOne SentenceMacroeconomicsMedian Author:Tyler Cowen
“Just as an informal, nonscientific observation, most people's personalities don't seem to change very much during their lives. There are exceptions in the case of people who go through hugely traumatic events or suffer from brain injury or disease. Some would argue that religious conversions can have deep personality-altering effects. But these are all exceptions to the rule.” PeopleSeemsSufferingReligiousBrainCasesEffectsEventsPersonalityDiseaseArguingConversionObservationInjuryExceptionException To The RuleTraumatic EventsBrain Injury Author:Neal Stephenson