Jay Matthews

When approached with caution, labels can genuinely be useful to us and others. We just have to periodically check in with ourselves to make sure we are not being controlled and consumed by our labels.

" Be kind to yourself, but at the same time skeptical and constructively critical, and you might just find the real you in there somewhere."

“The word “poverty” was a fine, somehow noble word. It evoked an image out of old schoolbooks: poor but clean. Cleanliness made the poor socially acceptable. Social progress meant teaching people to be clean; once the indigent had been cleaned up, “poverty” became a title of honour. Even in the eyes of the poor, the squalor of destitution applied... See more

And there’s a lot of positive evidence. It’s not that there’s some metaphysical concept of beauty that rules the world — beauty is a human experience. It’s something that has to do with how humans react to the world and perceive the world. And it’s notoriously thought to be subjective, but it’s not entirely subjective. There’s a very rich history... See more

Through fantasy we repair, compensate, and transform. For a few moments, we rise above the reality of life and, subsequently, the reality of death.

On relationships with others in the field: “It’s a very important medium-term project to bring China into the international scientific community in a worthy way,” he says. “There’s a tremendous hunger for research and knowledge in science there. I wish it weren’t so politically fraught.”

How do we bear witness? How do we bid farewell?