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A.J. Jacobs QUOTES

A.J. Jacobs QUOTES

121 " I had been avoiding the D-word. But the kids cut right to it. My boys are well aware of death. My twins finish every story they make up with the same phrase: "Then everyone died. The end. "

― A.J. Jacobs , Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

122 " The Proverbs—a collection of wisdom in the Old Testament—say that smiling makes you happy. Which is actually backed up by psychological studies. So I stand there with a flight attendant–like grin frozen on my face. But inside, I am full of wrath. "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

123 " Back pain is the single most common reason people visit the doctor. "

― A.J. Jacobs , Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

124 " Etruscans sometimes wrote boustrophedon style, in which the direction of writing alternates with each line—right-to-left, then left-to-right. Brilliant! The eye doesn’t waste time trekking back to the left side of the page after every line. "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World

125 " It's amazing how a strip of sticky plastic will make my kids' pain vanish. Lucas will be howling about a stepped-on finger, but as soon as the SpongeBob Band-Aid touches his pinkie, he's all smiles. My sons are so convinced of the magical healing powers of Band-Aids, they think they can solve almost any problem. A couple of years ago, when out Sony TV blew a fuse, Jasper stuck a Band-Aid on the screen hoping to revive it. "

― A.J. Jacobs , Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

126 " I'm not sure how to react to this information. Mostly, I'm thinking that if the revolution comes, this fact alone will make it hard to fault the insurrection. "Well, I don't approve of mass executions of the ruling class," we'll have to admit. "But on the other hand, there's that trend of plastic surgery to upgrade our farts. We really were asking for it. "

― A.J. Jacobs , Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

127 " In Judaism, the biblical laws that come without explanation—and there are many—are called chukim. This is such a law. The point is, you can never know what is important in the long term. God might have a different measuring scale than us. In fact, some say it’s more crucial to follow the inexplicable ones, because it shows you’re committed, that you have great faith. "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

128 " The whole Bible is the working out of the relationship between God and man,” says Greenberg. “God is not a dictator barking out orders and demanding silent obedience. Were it so, there would be no relationship at all. No real relationship goes just one way. There are always two active parties. We must have reverence and awe for God, and honor for the chain of tradition. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use new information to help us read the holy texts in new ways. We don’t have to sit back and passively accept that Leviticus bans sex between men at all times and in all ways if other convincing ways of reading can be found. "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

129 " Mr. Berkowitz clicks open his black American Tourister rolling suitcase. Inside, his tools: a microscope, an old canister with the faded label “vegetable flakes,” and various instruments that look like my mother’s sewing kit after a genetic mutation. He spreads them out on my living room table. Mr. Berkowitz reminds me of an Orthodox CSI. God’s wardrobe detective. He "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

130 " When I force myself to utter the awkward phrase, "I am grateful," I actually start to feel a bit more grateful...It's basic cognitive behavioral therapy: Behave in a certain way, and your mind will eventually catch up with your actions. "

― A.J. Jacobs , Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey

131 " I once made the mistake of uttering the phrase "kill two birds with one stone" in [Aunt Marti's] presence. She corrected me. The proper phrase is "liberate two birds with one gesture. "

― A.J. Jacobs , It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree

132 " I've started to look at life differently. When you're thanking God for every little you - every meal, every time you wake up, every time you take a sip of water - you can't help but be more thankful for life itself, for the unlikely and miraculous fact that you exist at all. "

― A.J. Jacobs

133 " There's a beauty to forgiveness, especially forgiveness that goes beyond rationality. Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great & powerful one "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

134 " Did you hear about the middle Eastern potentate?" he asked me. "This potentate called a meeting of the wise men in the kingdom, and said, "I want you to gather all the world's knowledge together in one place so that my sons can read it and learn."The wise men went off, and after year, they came back with twenty-five volumes of knowledge. This potentate looked at it and he said, "No. It's too long. Make it shorter." So the wise men went off for another year. When they came back, they gave the potentate a piece of paper with one sentence on it. A single sentence. You know what the sentence was?"
Bob looked at me. I shook my head.
"The sentence was: "This too shall pass."
Bob paused, let it sink in: "I heard that when I was very young and it has always stuck with me. "

― A.J. Jacobs

135 " philosophy
I studied philosophy for four years. But I'd trade everything I learned for this passage... quoted in the Britannica:
'But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.'
Amen. "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World

136 " Ecclesiastes
This is a book of the Old Testament. I don't believe I've ever read this section of the Bible - I know my Genesis pretty well and my Ten Commandments (I like lists), but I'm hazy on a lot of the other parts. Here, the Britannica provides a handy Cliff Notes version of Ecclesiastes:

[the author's] observations on life convinced him that 'the race is not swift, nor the battle strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all' (9:11). Man's fate, the author maintains, does not depend on righteous or wicked conduct but is an inscrutable mystery that remains hidden in God (9:1). All attempts to penetrate this mystery and thereby gain the wisdom necessary to secure one's fate are 'vanity' or futile. In the face of such uncertainty, the author's counsel is to enjoy the good things that God provides while one has them to enjoy.

This is great. I've accumulated hundreds of facts in the last seven thousand pages, but i've been craving profundity and perspective. Yes, there was that Dyer poem, but that was just cynical. This is the real thing: the deepest paragraph I've read so far in the encyclopedia. Instant wisdom. It couldn't be more true: the race does not go to the swift. How else to explain the mouth-breathing cretins I knew in high school who now have multimillion-dollar salaries? How else to explain my brilliant friends who are stuck selling wheatgrass juice at health food stores? How else to explain Vin Diesel's show business career? Yes, life is desperately, insanely, absurdly unfair. But Ecclesiastes offers exactly the correct reaction to that fact. There's nothing to be done about it, so enjoy what you can. Take pleasure in the small things - like, for me, Julie's laugh, some nice onion dip, the insanely comfortable beat-up leather chair in our living room.

I keep thinking about Ecclesiastes in the days that follow. What if this is the best the encyclopedia has to offer? What if I found the meaning of life on page 347 of the E volume? The Britannica is not a traditional book, so there's no reason why the big revelation should be at the end. "

― A.J. Jacobs

137 " I was smart enough to know that I shouldn't tell anyone the reason I needed that icy air. No need to spill the secret that I was the genius of all geniuses, the Leonardo da Vinci of the 1980s. That would just inspire envy and skepticism. So I'd just stare at the closed window and stew. If ten minutes went by without my lungs getting fresh air, I panicked. I needed to make sure the monoxide hadn't eaten my cranium. "

― A.J. Jacobs

138 " As grandma said, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all "

― A.J. Jacobs , The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

139 " I know that everything is connected like a worldwide version of the six-degrees-of-separation game. I know that history is simultaneously a bloody mess and a collection of feats so inspiring and amazing they make you proud to share the same DNA structure with the rest of humanity. I know you’d better focus on the good stuff or you’re screwed. I know that the race does not go to the swift, nor the bread to the wise, so you should soak up what enjoyment you can. I know not to take cinnamon for granted. I know that morality lies in even the smallest decisions, like whether to pick up and throw away a napkin... I know firsthand the oceanic volume of information in the world. I know that I know very little of that ocean… I know I’ve contradicted myself hundreds of times over the last year, and that history has contradicted itself thousands of times… I know that you should always say yes to adventures or you’ll lead a very dull life. I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing—but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning. "

― A.J. Jacobs

140 " Ich habe mehr vergessen, als die meisten Menschen in ihrem ganzen Leben lernen. "

― A.J. Jacobs