Great Throughts Treasury

"Teens think listening to music helps them concentrate. It doesn't. It relieves them of the boredom that concentration on homework induces."

"The chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time."

"Think of a hypothesis as a card. A theory is a house made of hypotheses."

"The magnitude of an action may change not only the strength of its impact, but the direction. If you became a dentist, for example, you would certainly be an asset to our society. But what if everyone became a dentist? Who would bake the bread? Who would build the houses?"

"The freedom to be an individual is the essence of America."

"The length of your education is less important than its breadth, and the length of your life is less important than its depth."

"The difference between talking on your cell phone while driving and speaking with a passenger is huge. The person on the other end of the cell phone is chattering away, oblivious."

"The original answer defines certain conditions... Anything else is a different question."

"The two worst things we teach our children are that a knowledge of science is nice but not necessary and a knowledge of sex is necessary but not nice."

"Ultimately, our future is like a mirror. Whenever we face it, it always reflects what we left behind."

"What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from.""

"Understand why casinos and racetracks stay in business - the gambler always loses over the long term."

"What women want is what men want. They want respect."

"When our spelling is perfect, it's invisible. But when it's flawed, it prompts strong negative associations."

"Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant."

"While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying."

"You're who you think you are, even if you never admit it to yourself or to anyone else. You may be in the worst position to judge, but you're in the best position to know."