Minsuk Kang 강민석

Yes. I was nineteen or twenty. Harry Adams, who was the master of Trumbull College, said, “Do you want to come to this tea? This missionary from Japan is coming.” And so this nice white guy, who helped poor Koreans in Japan, came and gave a talk. There were about two of us in the entire room, and I couldn’t leave. He told the story about, I guess,... See more

"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates confidently, defiantly asserts to his listeners, to his audience. Nothing else matters for him.

If someone says I have spinach between my teeth, I’m suicidal. But if someone criticizes my writing I’m fine, because it’s mine. So I’m all right. Even if a magazine editor complains that my story is “too small,” then I may get cross, but it’s still my story .

Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige. That's the recipe for getting people to give talks, write forewords, serve on committees, be department heads, and so on. It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious... See more