“Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.”

“Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse”

“They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)”

“...my classical values make me advocate the triplet of erudition, elegance, and courage; against modernity's phoniness, nerdiness, and philistinism...many philistines reduce my ideas to an opposition of technology when in fact I am opposing the naive blindness to it's side affects - the fragility criterion. I'd rather be unconditional about ethical and conditional about technology than the the reverse.”

“They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.”

“Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur”

“Love without sacrifice is like theft”