Eliezer Yudkowsky Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy. Rationality: From AI to Zombies

2. By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

3. Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someone solved it. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

4. I'm not stupid, Mr. Potter. What's the real reason you didn't tell me, and what were you actually doing with Mr. Malfoy?""Ah. Well..." Harry broke eye contact with her, and looked down at the library table."Draco Malfoy told the Aurors under Veritaserum that he wanted to know if he could beat me, so he challenged me to a duel to test it empirically. Those were his exact words according to the transcript.""Right," Harry said, still not meeting her eyes. "Hermione Granger. Of course she'll remember the exact wording. It doesn't matter if she's chained to her chair, on trial for murder in front of the entire Wizengamot -""What were you really doing with Draco Malfoy?"Harry winced, and said, "Probably not quite what you're thinking, but..."The horror scaled and scaled within her, and finally broke loose."You were doing SCIENCE with him? ""Well -""You were doing SCIENCE with him? You were supposed to be doing science with ME!  Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

5. It's a most peculiar psychology—this business of 'Science is based on faith too, so there!' Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say 'Science is based on faith too!' in that angry-triumphal tone, rather than as a compliment? And a rather dangerous compliment to give, one would think, from their perspective. If science is based on 'faith', then science is of the same kind as religion—directly comparable. If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the sick and reveals the secrets of the stars. It would make sense to say, 'The priests of science can blatantly, publicly, verifiably walk on the Moon as a faith-based miracle, and your priests' faith can't do the same.' Are you sure you wish to go there, oh faithist? Perhaps, on further reflection, you would prefer to retract this whole business of 'Science is a religion too! The Less Wrong Sequences

6. Most Muggles lived in a world defined by the limits of what you could do with cars and telephones. Even though Muggle physics explicitly permitted possibilities like molecular nanotechnology or the Penrose process for extracting energy from black holes, most people filed that away in the same section of their brain that stored fairy tales and history books, well away from their personal realities: Long ago and far away, ever so long ago. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

7. One of chief pieces of advice I give to aspiring rationalists is "Don't try to be clever." And, "Listen to those quiet, nagging doubts." If you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, you don't know how much you don't know, and you don't know how much you needed to know.

8. Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What you're talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write 'and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese', and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn't. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false. Whether or not the whole sheet of paper ends up with the right conclusion or the wrong conclusion is fixed the instant you write down the bottom line. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

9. There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US! Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

10. To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality