Two Thoughts” A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom by Jim O’Shaughnessy with Vatsal Kaushik captures insights from 250 of the world’s most influential minds. These pages capture the essence of human thought and experience. These quotes will challenge, inspire, and illuminate as they provide a lens through which to view your own life. Put a copy on your desk and open it to any page to find a companion for your thoughts, a catalyst for your aspirations, or simply a moment of clarity in your day. Thanks Jim and Vatsal.

Preface

• It all started with a tweet from Jim O’Shaughnessy on December 28, 2020. It contained two quotes from Buckminster Fuller. This started Jim’s Two Thoughts series that became a daily institution. What is important is not what is said or who said it, but it’s what you do with it. Try to make some of these quotes your own. As you read, scribble, go on tangents, and find weird relationships. This should be a book or action, not only of thought, so try not to read it cover to cover. Good luck and have some fun.

Introduction

• Consider that the human mind contains two characters, the thinker, and the prover. After some effort, the thinker decides that something is right or wrong and then shuts off. The prover’s job then is to look at the beliefs delivered by the thinker and get to work proving them right. The prover might firewall information counter to what is supposed to be proved. Once the proving is done, most people stop thinking on the matter and go on to something else. (Doug: From what I’ve seen, many people let the media they consume do the thinking, and perhaps most, if not all of the proving.)
• The authors encourage you not to accept the quotes here as gospel, but rather to use them to get you thinking, proving, and thinking again in an endless cycle. Weigh these quotes, but don’t worship them. Be entertained rather than exalted. Chew on them, but don’t swallow.
• The next five chapters contain two quotes from 250 people followed by a brief biography. Rather than try to summarize them, I will give you some of my favorites. Yours will probably be different, so BUY THIS BOOK!

Wordsmiths: Writers, Playwrights, Poets, Satirists, and Cartoonists

• The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Dorthy Parker
• Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy people trying to find easier ways to do something. Robert Heinlein
• You don’t have the right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the cards you’re holding. Cheryl Strayed
• There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. Ernest Hemingway
• Children aren’t coloring books. You do not get to fill them in with your favorite colors. Khaled Hosseini
• You’re twice as biased as you think you are (four times if you disagree with that statement). Morgan Housel
• Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. Franz Kafka

Scholars: Researchers, Psychologists, Economists, Academics, and Executives

• When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Viktor Frankl
• My advice is to read widely and think for yourself. We need more dissent and less dogma. Camille Paglia
• Self-improvement comes mainly from trying to help others. Sir John Templeton
• Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. Charles Darwin
• It is an iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight was far from obvious at the time. Yuval Noah Harari
• To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail. Abraham Maslow
• You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him. Booker T. Washington
• The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. John Kenneth Galbraith
• When supporting others, we need to offer the comfort of Kirk and the intellect of Spock. Ethan Kross

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