Muir was a quintessential romantic frontier figure. Unarmed, carrying only a few crusts of bread, a tin cup a small portion of tea, a notebook, and a few scientific instruments, Muir walked into the vastness of the Sierras to search out truths. Single- minded, he did not hesitate to challenge the accepted the accepted authorities and their explanations regarding the wilderness he loved. He formulated his own theories and carefully searched out the evidence. America has always loved its rebels, even if it turns out later that they have not discovered the whole truth.
Category: Thinkers
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The best way forward with AI is empirical and pragmatic: develop and test models, observe what happens, and learn as we go.
That from his paper Compounding Intelligence: Adapting to the AI Revolution
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Europeans coming to America are surprised by the brilliancy of our autumnal foliage. There is no account of such a phenomenon in English poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright colors there. The most that Thomson says on this subject is his "Autumn" is contained in the lines, --
"But see the fading many-colored woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark" : -
and in the line which he speaks of
"Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods."No one writes about seasons, weather, or fall, like Henry D. Thoreau.
This from his essay Autumnal Tints.
Thoreau, Henry D.. Essays: A Fully Annotated Edition. Italy, Yale University Press, 2013. p. 281
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As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.
- Walt Whitman, Autumn RivuletsWhitman, Walt. The Complete Poems. United Kingdom, Penguin Books Limited, 2004. p.379
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Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.
– Treebeard
Where Merry and Pippen encounter Treebeard.
Fascinating idea from Tolkien.
What if all languages took such a long time to say anything, that we had to only say things worth saying. 🙂
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Cohn-Bendit on TV. Intelligent, cunning, devious, has the memory of everything he has ever read; impertinent; good, rapid speaker; wraps up his opponents ( a trio of middle-aged newsmen). He has the ruthlessness of someone unable to put himself in another’s place.
– Mavis Gallant
How does Mavis get away with writing sentences like this? Describing so much with so few words. Incomplete sentences my elementary school teachers would say.
Read a few pages of the Paris Notebook and you’ll realize where the inspiration for the French Dispatch came from. Not only the Lucinda Krementz part. The entire film!
Even the typeface at the top of the pages and chapter beginnings will look familiar.
Gallant, Mavis. Paris Notebooks: Essays & Reviews. United States, David R. Godine Publisher, 2023. p. 19
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The truth is Franklin failed often. He never folded, though. When confronted with a setback, he didn’t abandon the idea. He retooled it and tried again. Franklin never let failure discourage him from taking new risks, including his biggest gamble of all: jumping from British Loyalist to American rebel, and at age sixty-nine. For Franklin, failure was a down payment on success.
That from a fascinating new book Ben & Me. Ben Franklin, late bloomer. Kept an open mind at age sixty-nine.
Weiner, Eric. Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder’s Formula for a Long and Useful Life. United States, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2024. p.104
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“I encourage myself, since nobody else encourages me,”
– Werner Herzog
But how?
On every page lives a gem.
Cronin, Paul. Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Faber & Faber, 2020. p. xxiv
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‘All rising to great place is by a winding stair’
Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024. p.1
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It is interesting to learn once more how much further one can go on one’s second wind. I think that it is an important lesson for everyone to learn for it should also be applied to one’s mental efforts. Most people go through life without discovering the existence of that whole field of endeavor which we describe as a second wind. Whether mentally or physically most people give up at the first appearance of exhaustion. Thus they never learn the glory and the exhilaration of genuine effort…
– Agnes Meyer
Agnes Meyer was Mrs. Graham’s mother. Mrs. Graham the former CEO of the Washington Post.
This was the valuable lesson Agnes instilled.
Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024. p.3
and
Graham, Personal History, p. 40.
