If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813

“It was an easy start, but I must confess to you that nothing has been easy since then.” How Welles went from a painter to an actor in Dublin.

Facebook is available 24/7 and for the most part, so am I. The days when I even think of unplugging for a weekend or a vacation are long gone.
Sheryl Sandberg’s idea of a life well lived.
Our main result, which is independent of the market considered, is that standard trading strategies and their algorithms, based on the past history of the time series, although have occasionally the chance to be successful inside small temporal windows, on a large temporal scale, perform on average not better than the purely random strategy, which, on the other hand, is also much less volatile.
Are random trading strategies more successful than technical ones?
Psychologically, the economic aim of the individual is, always has been, and probably always will be, to secure a permanent revenue independent of further effort, proof against the passage of time and the chance of circumstance, to support himself in old age and his family after him in perpetuity. He endeavours to do so by accumulating so much property in the heyday of his youth that he and his heirs may live on the interest on it in perpetuity afterwards. Economic and social history is the conflict of this human aspiration with the laws of physics, which make such a perpetuum mobile impossible, and reduces the problem merely to the method by which one individual may get another individual or the community into his debt and prevent repayment, so that the individual or community must share the produce of their efforts with their creditor.
Frederick Soddy, 1921
parislemon:

christmasgorilla:

From Tyler Surfboards, courtesy of Lane Wood.

So true.

parislemon:

christmasgorilla:

From Tyler Surfboards, courtesy of Lane Wood.

So true.

(via edporras)

If he does not fervently feel it to be pleasanter and sweeter to return from a wrestling-match, dusty but victorious, with the prize in his hand, than from a game of tennis or a ball, I can see no other remedy than for his tutor to strangle him before it is too late, if there are no witnesses.
Montaigne, from an Essai on education.
Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.
Leibniz, whose sentiments I share regarding “brains in vats”, “it’s all a dream”, &c.
Culture and refinement all alone are not enough to do so. Ideal aspirations are not enough, when uncombined with pluck and will. But neither are pluck and will, dogged endurance and insensibility to danger enough, when taken all alone. There must be some sort of fusion, some chemical combination among these principles, for a life objectively and thoroughly significant to result.
William James, What Makes a Life Significant