From one piece 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address 14 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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The highest form that civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust. Not much procedure, just totally reliable people correctly trusting one another.
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In this world, we have two kinds of knowledge. One is Planck knowledge—the people who really know. They’ve paid the dues, they have the aptitude. Then, we’ve got chauffeur knowledge—they have learned to prattle the talk and they have a big head of hair. They may have fine timbre in the voice. They really make a hell of an impression. But in the end, they’ve got chauffeur knowledge.
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Checklist routines avoid a lot of errors. You should have all this elementary wisdom and then you should go through and have a checklist in order to use it. There is no other procedure that will work as well.
+ 11 more
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objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you’re going to be a correct thinker.
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Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought. Self-pity gets pretty close to paranoia and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity.
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korrents.com
One has to allow for the self-serving bias of everybody else, and failing to do so is foolishTheir words
You also have to allow for the self-serving bias of everybody else, because most people are not gonna remove it all that successfully, the only condition being what it is. If you don’t allow for self-serving bias in your conduct, again, you’re a fool.
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I’m not entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people do who are supporting it.” I think only when I reach that stage am I qualified to speak.
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korrents.com
Sloth and unreliability are what to avoid: an unreliable person craters whatever their virtuesTheir words
Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability.
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Those of you who have mastered algebra know that inversion frequently will solve problems which nothing else will solve. And in life, unless you’re more gifted than Einstein, inversion will help you solve problems that you can’t solve in other ways.
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And it doesn’t help you just to know them enough just so you can prattle them back on an exam and get an A. You have to learn these things in such a way that they’re in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life.
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korrents.com
People who are learning machines rise in life even when they are not the smartest or the most diligentTheir words
I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up and boy does that help—particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.
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You are not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You’re going to advance in life by what you’re going to learn after you leave here.
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wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. It’s not something you do just to advance in life. Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty.
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the safest way to try and get what you want is to try and deserve what you want.