November 04, 2017

From The Economist:

[How] rare it was for single battles or brilliant generals to be decisive.

Nearly all the belligerents in 1914 believed they would be fighting a short war, until they found they weren't.

From Harper's:

People think of themselves as better than average because they think of average as below average.

From Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day:

It was a fine feeling indeed to be standing up there like that, with the sound of summer all around one and a light breeze on one's face. And I believe it was then, looking on that view, that I began for the first time to adopt a frame of mind appropriate for the journey before me.

From The Economist:

Caesarean babies are more prone than others to allergies... and that they are also more likely to become fat.

From Cass R. Sunstein's On Rumors:

[When] likeminded people get together, they often end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk to one another.

Indeed, they may have moved from being tentative believers to being absolutely certain that the rumor is true, even though all they know is what other group members think.