III
Better to have erudition without degrees than degrees without erudition.
It is not bad to have degrees; but better to have both degrees and erudition.
Better to show meekness than pride, in wisdom.
Expect true love to be unexpected.
For the Romans, fear was the opposite of love (e.g. Julius Caesar).
Fractal world: the branch is like the tree, but smaller.[1]
To not confuse the branch for the tree in a fractal world, do not look at their shape, but at their size.
God transforms all evil into good is, I think, the solution to the problem of evil.
Imprisonment is not surrender.
In religion, we consider this asymmetry of choices: you can lose your soul to gain the whole world, but you can never undo this choice.
Understand that the soul is more valuable than the whole world.
Intervention can change the regime for the worse or for the better, depending on the interventionists.
Better to let others intervene than to do it yourself and change the regime for the worse―no one should intervene and change the regime for the worse.
Just as there is one true messiah (Jesus Christ) and the rest are false, there is one true religion (Orthodox Christianity) and the rest are false.
Shame preserves your success; consider Nassim Taleb’s definition of success.
The author you like the most can write something you dislike; the author you dislike the most can write something you like.
To become as flexible as a sword is, have no fixed ideas.[2]
To not convince me, be a magician; to convince me, be a saint.[3]
To prepare for the worst, consider that the severest crisis is the one which has never occurred in the past.
To test the Heder Hacahal’s robustness to time, see if it changes…
Treat money like flowers, “Do not pick what you did not plant.”
We can learn discernment from Saint John the Baptist so that we can hate the crusades, never the crusaders.
Not all they did in the name of the Cross is as holy as the Cross is.
We can subtract imperfection, but we cannot reach perfection; we never reduce the whole thing.
We will never reach perfection. (Salvador Dali)
What you falsify once, you falsify forever; everything, in science.
You can acquire some knowledge without falsification (e.g. religion).
When you do not hate those that do harm, you can help them do good (at least, in similar circumstances).
You are rich, if money does not make you rich; you are not rich, if money makes you rich.[4]
[1] Benoit Mandelbrot.
[2] Have no fixed ideas, except this one (the metalevel).
[3] He was first a magician and then a saint, Cyprian.
[4] To solve the paradoxes, there is another kind of richness than the usual…
