world's oldest trees

 

from crack dealer to Tiffany promoter

"My pain is your entertainment."
- Jay-Z [born 1969]

transcendentalist

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862]

Beeple: as surprised as we are

 

Kills the King, Becomes the New King, and Kills More People Out of Paranoia.

"Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires”[Act I, Scene 4]
- William Shakespeare [1564-1616]'s Macbeth who wanted happiness but immorality led to misery.

colloquialism

"Sometimes the road less travelled is less travelled for a reason."
- Jerry Seinfeld [born 1954]

aimless dropout to starchitect

 

Scottish Enlightenment

“Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.” - Adam Smith [1723-1790], An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776]

body shame

"Going back to Genesis, we are the only animal with a sense of nakedness."

Regency Dandy

 

Beau Brummell [1778-1840] eliminated the powdered wig.

storyteller

"Betray a friend, and you'll often find you have ruined yourself.”

- Aesop [c. 620–564 BCE]

neuroscientist and entrepreneurial artist

 

fable

"Every man carries two bags about him, one in front and one behind, and both are full of faults. The bag in front contains his neighbors' faults, the one behind his own. Hence it is that men do not see their own faults, but never fail to see those of others."
— Aesop [c. 620-584 BCE]

A montage of 80s Soviet television visuals

Paris live webcam

 

pewter and wineglass

 

William Shakespeare's Falstaff was "The cause that wit is in other men."

prostitute and madam for lesbians

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”

– Maya Angelou [1928-2014]

Elon Musk's Commencement address

 

human beings generally

"When we're born, we cry because we've arrived on the stage of life, like all the other fools."
- William Shakespeare [1564-1616]: King Lear: Act 4, Scene 6

thrill of victory, agony of defeat

 

coming together of two worlds.

“No greater humiliation, it seems to me, was meted out to any man than Montezuma [1466-1520]; no race was ever more ruthlessly wiped out than the American Indian; no land was ever raped in a bloody and foul way than California was by the gold diggers. I blush to think of our origins—our hands are steeped in blood and crime.” 

― Henry Miller [1891-1980], Tropic of Capricorn

French axiom

The Bread Famine in 18th-century France

"Only those who can't afford to pay taxes, pay taxes."

geodesic

 

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.”
- Buckminster Fuller [1895-1973]

couldn't prove there is no god, but was an atheist

“The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
—Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]

Serenity Now

 

“Tell me anyway. Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.”

“Life is not an easy matter ... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.” 

― Leon Trotsky [1875-1940], Diary in Exile, 1935

First scientist

Thales of Miletus, [c. 624–620 BCE — c. 548–545 BCE] used a scientific method which didn't resort to mystical or mythological explanations, but he did believe that the Earth was a flat disk floating on a vast sea.

dent

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”

– Steve Jobs [1955 - 2011]

soph·ist·ry

Sophist teacher from Smyrna [Izmir, Turkey]

[noun]

        The use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.