Rationality Quotes Thread November 2015

elharo

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

That's an excellent way to take that quotation, but note that it's probably actually derived from a famous prayer ascribed to St Francis of Assisi in which it surely isn't referring to what one should to in order to convince someone else of something.

(The prayer almost certainly has nothing much to do with St Francis, other than maybe being inspired by something written by one of his associates. But that's not important right now.)

2[anonymous]11y

The "Seek First to Understand" quote comes from Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 4), who meant it in kind of a hybrid way that has to do with both the "give first" idea of St. Francis as well as the "Changing People's Minds" idea I mention above.