Inspirational Quotes 62

Simon says jump in the air...

Stand out of the crowd, be a tall poppy blah blah blah.

Whereas ordinary individuals will imitate others due to perceived pressures of social desirability, autistic individuals are shown to not perceive such pressures. (The Psychologist April 2014, (review of Horizon – Living with Autism, BBC2)

General mental ability does not in itself result in success. It has to be combined with exceptional social skills to pay off. (Oliver James)

We also have a tendency to imitate high-status individuals – think of modern celebrity culture – and conform to social norms. (New Scientist, May 2014)

Another thing that will help you pick up social skills quickly is getting a job at a restaurant or in sales. Cashier or a position as a cook in a restaurant are two good choices. As far as the cook goes, you have to deal with 10+ waitresses and the people inside of the kitchen. As a cashier you've gotta deal with hundreds of customers a day. Working as a cook helped me out more than you can imagine. I got to know a lot of hot waitresses and their hot friends. (Slashdot)

See what your friends are doing and go with them. That way you feel happier to talk to people and then have a wider circle of people who you can go places to. Rinse, repeat. (Mog Wai)

I like to hang around restaurants at midday, pretending I'm on a lunchbreak, too. I sit near people who work in offices and laugh at all their stories, about their awful bosses, about all the overtime they have to do. If anyone asks, I'm called Mary and I'm a secretary. In fact, we're workmates. Since it's holiday season, I can say I'm a temp and that's why they don't recognise me. And they let me in, especially if I say: "Who do you have to sleep with around here to get some stationery?" (Susan Calman, Guardian Aug 16 12)


Barbara Ehrenreich is really good on way that enforced positive thinking individualises problems: 'If it didn't work, you didn't try'. (@MarkOneinFour)

Positivity [may] prompt us to seek wars we can't win, make us waste time and money "improving" ourselves when the real impediments to happiness lie far beyond our control. (Lucy Ellman on Barbara Ehrenreich)

How did we get to the point that we apparently believe individual agency trumps economic and other factors in seeking work? (@MarkOneinFour)


I sometimes fear that people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you… It doesn’t walk in saying, “Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.” (Michael Rosen May 2014)

When powers are overthrown quickly, we look for causes in the past when often it is simply a feat of superior arms. (@byzantinepower)

Anyone hostile to research is probably benefiting from ignorance. (Erika Hall ‏@mulegirl)


In the study dealing with children’s happiness, one of the things that contributed to that happiness was lack of bullying… those who had been bullied in childhood were less likely to be in a relationship. (americablog.com)

Behind the façade of a bully lies an even more vicious bully. (Des Wilson, Daily Mail April 2014)


People who laugh at your jokes are more likely to be interested in having sex with you. (@UberFacts)

“Astronomers should leave to astrologers the task of seeking out the cause of earthly events in the stars,” the editors of the New York Times wrote [about the asteroid extinction theory]. Complex events seldom have simple explanations.” [Distinguished physicist] Walter Alvarez wrote back and told them their claim was contradicted by the entire history of physics. (LRB May 2014)

We don't want to be Christians, but we want to live in a society in which everybody else behaves as though they are. (Andrew Marr)

Almost every major theorist on human behaviour in the last 100 years predicted that it was just a matter of time before religion was a vestige of the past. But the world persists in being a very religious place. (psmag.com)

Travelling is an elaborate and expensive middle class life avoidance strategy. (G November 24, 2005)

More here, and links to the rest.