arundelo comments on Rationality Quotes August 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alejandro1 03 August 2012 03:33PM

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Comment author: arundelo 11 August 2012 09:51:17PM 2 points [-]

A favorite of mine, but according to Wikiquote G.K. Chesterton said it first, in chapter 14 of What's Wrong With The World:

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Comment author: gwern 11 August 2012 10:56:06PM 0 points [-]

I like Simon's version better: it flows without the awkward pause for the comma.

Comment author: arundelo 11 August 2012 11:28:28PM *  3 points [-]

Yep, it seems that often epigrams are made more epigrammatic by the open-source process of people misquoting them. I went looking up what I thought was another example of this, but Wiktionary calls it "[l]ikely traditional" (though the only other citation is roughly contemporary with Maslow).

Comment author: gwern 11 August 2012 11:36:10PM 6 points [-]

Memetics in action - survival of the most epigrammatic!