Orts #803

From the age of six to fourteen I took violin lessons but had no luck with my teachers, for whom music did not transcend mechanical practicing. I really began to learn only after I had fallen in love with Mozart’s sonatas. The attempt to reproduce their singular grace compelled me to improve my technique. I believe, on the whole, that love is a better teacher than sense of duty.
     — Albert Einstein, in a draft of a letter to Philipp Frank, 1940


During the Cuban missile crisis, [Vasili] Arkhipov [a Soviet naval officer] was serving on a submarine in the Caribbean when U.S. destroyers set off depth charges nearby. His captain, unable to establish radio contact with Moscow, feared that the conflict had escalated and ordered a nuclear strike. But Arkhipov dissuaded him, and all-out atomic war was averted.
     — Raffi Khatchadourian, The Doomsday Invention: Will artificial intelligence bring us utopia or destruction?, The New Yorker, November 23, 2015


Maturity begins with the capacity to sense and, in good time and without defensiveness, admit to our own craziness. If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun.
    — Alain de Botton, The Course of Love