human behavior

  • Researchers classified the three types of behavior. The first group, termed gamblers, took high risks but exerted no influence on the outcome of events. The second group, termed conservatives, were people who took very little risk. The third group, termed achievers, had to test the limits of what they could do, and with no prompting demonstrated the point of the experiment: namely, that some people simply must test themselves.

    By challenging themselves, these people were likely to miss a peg several times, but when they began to ring the peg consistently, they gained satisfaction and a sense of achievement. The point is that both competence and achievement-oriented people spontaneously try to test the outer limits of their abilities.

    — High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove

  • Thin-slicing is not an exotic gift. It is a central part of what it means to be human. We thin-slice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of something quickly or encounter a novel situation. We thin-slice because we have to, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of hidden fists out there, lots of situations where careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even for no more than a second or two, can tell us an awful lot.

    — Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

  • Evolution moves toward greater complexity, greater elegance, greater knowledge, greater intelligence, greater beauty, greater creativity, greater love. And God has been called all these things, only without any limitation: infinite knowledge, infinite intelligence, infinite beauty, infinite creativity, and infinite love. Evolution does not achieve an infinite level, but as it explodes exponentially it certainly moves in that direction. So evolution moves inexorably toward our conception of God, albeit never reaching this ideal.

    — The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil

  • When you know the simple movements so well that you can perform them without thinking, you are free to pay attention to more advanced details. In this way, habits are the backbone of any pursuit of excellence.

    — Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

  • To think is to rehearse action without triggering it. Thought involves the excitation of motor neurons, but below the threshold at which the actions those neurons enervate would be emitted. In computer parlance, thought is virtual behavior.

    — Genomes, Menomes, Wenomes: Neuroscience and Human Dignity by Robert W. Fuller

No more stories or excerpts.