The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
Malcolm Gladwell
Top 10 Best Quotes
“All war is absurd. For thousands of years, human beings have chosen to settle their differences by obliterating one another. And when we are not obliterating one another, we spend an enormous amount of time and attention coming up with better ways to obliterate one another the next time around. It’s all a little strange, if you think about it.”
“The more you invest in a set of beliefs—the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don’t give up. You double down.”
“The psychologist Daniel Wegner has this beautiful concept called transactive memory, which is the observation that we don’t just store information in our minds or in specific places. We also store memories and understanding in the minds of the people we love. You don’t need to remember your child’s emotional relationship to her teacher because you know your wife will; you don’t have to remember how to work the remote because you know your daughter will. That’s transactive memory. Little bits of ourselves reside in other people’s minds. Wegner has a heartbreaking riff about what one member of a couple will often say when the other one dies—that some part of him or her died along with the partner. That, Wegner says, is literally true. When your partner dies, everything that you have stored in that person’s brain is gone.”
“Without persistence, principles are meaningless. Because one day your dream may come true. And if you cannot keep that dream alive in the interim, then who are you?”
“We can admire Curtis LeMay, respect him, and try to understand his choices. But Hansell is the one we give our hearts to. Why? Because I think he provides us with a model of what it means to be moral in our modern world. We live in an era when new tools and technologies and innovations emerge every day. But the only way those new technologies serve some higher purpose is if a dedicated band of believers insists that they be used to that purpose.”
“I'm drawn again and again to obsessives. I like them. I like the idea that someone could push away all the concerns and details that make up everyday life and just zero in on one thing - the thing that fits the contours of his or her imagination. Obsessives lead us astray sometimes. Can't see the bigger picture. Serve not just the world's but also their own narrow interests. But I don't think we get progress or innovation or joy or beauty without obsessives.”
“Illegitimi non carborundum. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
“I define a moral action as one that brings advantage to my friends.”
“the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don’t give up. You double down.”
“What happens to true believers when their convictions are confronted by reality?”
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Book Keywords:
obsession, drive, passion, motivation
