After-Ots #58

— My experience is what I agree to attend to. —

My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind-- without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground-- intelligible perspective, in a word.
     -- William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890), chapter XI

 

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

     -- attributed to Yogi Berra and Albert Einstein, among others, but actually older:
     https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/04/14/theory/#more-18386


Bletchley Park, England’s decoding center during the Second World War, recruited its cryptographers not just from Oxford and Cambridge but also from among known crossword champions.
    --  Joan Acocella, in How the Rosetta Stone Yielded Its Secrets, a book review in the New Yorker, November 29, 2021:   https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/29/how-the-rosetta-stone-yielded-up-its-secrets-edward-dolnick-the-writing-of-the-gods