Laurence Endersen

"Frankl saw proof that “everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way”."

"Feynman’s comments on the distinction between knowing what something is called and understanding"

"“It is no work at all, in fact it is a privilege to be able to care for my mum.” What a great mindset."

"If someone gives us a reason for something, we are inclined to accept it, even if the merits are suspect. Munger calls it our reason-respecting tendency."

"In the last stage, which he kindly calls late adulthood, Erikson outlines how we spend much of our time reflecting on the life we have lived. If we have lived life with a sense of fulfilment, we can face aging, and ultimately death, with a feeling of integrity."

"Mark Twain quipped ironically that “all you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure”."

"Dalio’s suggested approach as: 1.              Knowing what you want; 2.              Knowing what’s true; 3.              Knowing what you need to do; and 4.              Doing it."

"have it handy (the availability bias). Kahneman calls this “what you see is all there is”. We ascribe greater weight to more recent facts, more vivid facts or the story that seems most coherent. We tend to accept our first conclusions."

"Adler introduces four levels of reading skill, each building on the former. The first is elementary reading. This is what we learn in school. On an elementary reading we can recall what a book says. Next comes inspectional reading from which we can deduce what the book is about. We get the gist of it and the general context. Beyond this level we can step up to analytical reading, from which we can explain what the book means. Analytical reading is at the root of understanding. We are underlining and marking up as we go along, circling key words, writing in the margins and making various notes. It is a deliberate and focused form of reading. Beyond analytical reading we can progress to the highest and most demanding form, which Adler calls syntopical reading. Here we are evaluating how the book compares with other books on the same topic."

"I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who -         Rudyard Kipling"

"in our heads, and very often our recollection (what Kahneman calls our remembering selves) is different to what really happened (our experiencing selves). Though illogical, this is not necessarily always a bad thing. To the extent that we can have a good story about ourselves, we can face the world with an optimistic resilience."

"Know Yourself, Be Yourself, Mind Yourself   I am not concerned with the driven or the sleepy mind but with one that is fully alert and free to express itself, for the mind shows its true nature only when it is free to play, free to be itself as fully as possible, just as a child will climb a tree under conditions of vigorous health, mental relaxation and the presence of an arboreal paradise. - Extract from Man’s Emerging Mind by N.J. Berrill"