Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015

Vaniver

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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson.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 Do not quote with only a name.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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson.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 Do not quote with only a name.

I don't play chess, or know how to play at all well, nor am I interested in learning. But are there any books by or about chess masters that I might find interesting, for teaching good habits of thought? Or even just a list of famous chess quotations?

The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence by Josh Waitzkin is the memoir of a chess child prodigy who later became a Tai Chi Chuan world champion. It's organized around his advice on developing the good habits of thought that he discovered when he was training for chess. But they are applicable to many domains: he makes the argument that the habits that made him excel at chess were also what made him a world-class competitor in Tai Chi Chuan.

2macrojams11y

"Willy Hendriks, Move First, Think Later: Sense and Nonsense in Improving Your Chess. To me, more interesting as behavioral economics and as epistemology than as a chess book. The author claims that most chess advice is bad, and that we figure out positional strategies only by trying concrete moves, not by applying general principles. You do need chess knowledge to profit from the book, but if you can manage it, it is one of the best books on how to think that I know. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/04/what-ive-been-reading-24.html#sthash.PdwwzDJR.dpuf" - Tyler Cowen

1IlyaShpitser11y

Chess fundamentals by Capablanca. Still the best book on learning positional chess, and in general "good taste" in position evaluation. There is a certain clarity of thought in this book. I am not sure how useful it is or whether it can "rub off." Available for free. ---------------------------------------- I think there are some vaguely autobiographical things by Botvinnik on preparing for matches, but it's more about discipline than thought habits.

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Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015

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Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015

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