Just One More Cup of Tea

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.

—Stephen Colbert (via imfantasyparade)

(Source: quote-book, via nataliedawn)

Freedom is seen as being able to do whatever we want, whenever we’d like. But this is a terrible lie. That isn’t freedom at all. Freedom is being able to have whatever you want and getting along just fine without it.

—Max Andrew Dubinsky

Without this strange intoxication, ridiculed by every outsider; without this passion … you have no calling for science and you should do something else.

—Max Weber

Since 1992 the Innocence Project, an American legal charity, has used DNA evidence to help exonerate 271 people who were wrongly convicted of crimes, sometimes after they had served dozens of years in prison. But a mystery has emerged from the case reports. Despite being innocent, around a quarter of these people had confessed or pleaded guilty to the offences of which they were accused.

—People have a strange and worrying tendency to admit to things they have not, in fact, done. Researchers aim to find out why. (via theeconomist)

(via theeconomist)