The second helpful notion mimics Galileo’s50 conclusion that scientific reality is often revealed only by math as if math was the language of God.

Daddy raised us to be skeptical, even contrarian, and that was a particularly helpful way of thinking to carry into the maelstrom of the late ’60s. Over many years, sitting in the library at our house on June Street, he had told us often funny stories of people who either followed the group too blindly or lashed out too reflexively. “Crazy,” “malad

More important than the will to win is the will to prepare.

If you want to get smart, the question you have to keep asking is “Why, why, why?”

Opportunity cost is a superpower, to be used by all people who have any hope of getting the right answer.

If my experience is any guide, the rustic’s approach is to be avoided at all cost by someone bent on misery.

Charlie detests placer mining, the process of sifting through piles of sand for specks of gold. Instead, he applies his “big ideas from the big disciplines” to find the large, unrecognized nuggets of gold that sometimes lie in plain sight on the ground.

Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets—and can be lost in a heartbeat.

This sort of tragedy is caused by letting the slop run. You must stop slop early. It’s very hard to stop slop and moral failure if you let it run for a while.