Elena

@elena

In New York, people speak fast. In the American South, they speak slowly. Both of them are a form of politeness, understood in a different way. In New York, you speak quickly because you respect the value of the other person’s time and you don’t want to take up too much of it. In the South, you speak slowly because you want to respect the person by... See more
from Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent? by Rory Sutherland
🦋 eunoia
“Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.”

―

John Berger
from A quote by John Berger
the nature of order
It seems to me that while reading non-fiction, most folks are in searching mode. Most would be more intellectually productive, however, in chasing mode. It helps to have in mind a question, puzzle, or problem, and then read in order to answer your question, explain your puzzle, or solve your problem.
from Chase Your Reading by Robin Hanson
the art of reading
People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas.

A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:

Counter-intuitive —
... See more
from What to Write About
to write is to think
They seemed to regard fiction not as something decorative but as a vital moral-ethical tool. They changed you when you read them, made the world seem to be telling a different, more interesting story, a story in which you might play a meaningful part, and in which you had responsibilities.
from A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
the art of reading
My first recommendation would be fiction. Reading fiction is important to understand the cross-sectional variation in humanity, to understand how difficult generalizations can be, to just get a sense of how different social pieces fit together, and to get a sense of different historical eras – and plus, reading fiction is often just plain flat-out ... See more
from Tyler Cowen on Reading Fast, Reading Well, and Reading Widely by Stuart Patience
the art of reading
On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion
Joan Didion reflects on the personal and introspective nature of keeping a notebook, delving into memory, self-reflection, and the significance of past experiences.
by Joan Didion
pdf-objects.com
21 highlights
note-making is sense-making
More and more it seems to me that about the best thing in life is to have a piece of work worth doing and then to do it well.
from Leadership Quotes by Doris Kearns Goodwin
on doing work that matters
In recent years, I've begun to suspect that a life consumed by ideas will not bring me closer to the divine. The freedom I seek, it seems, doesn't lie in my laying about, steeped in my own brain, but rather in the stillness I've found in the more mundane moments of my life. In these moments, there is no euphoria, nor even any active reflection on g... See more
from Glimpsing God by Nadia
you can't hoard life

from Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent? by Rory Sutherland

from A quote by John Berger

from Chase Your Reading by Robin Hanson

from What to Write About

from A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders

from Tyler Cowen on Reading Fast, Reading Well, and Reading Widely by Stuart Patience

On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

from Leadership Quotes by Doris Kearns Goodwin

from Glimpsing God by Nadia