Wow, " the empty air finally said. "Wow. That puts a pretty different perspective on things, I have to say. I'm going to remember this the next time I feel an impulse to blame myself for something. Neville, the term in the literature for this is 'egocentric bias', it means that you experience everything about your own life but you don't get to experience everything else that happens in the world. There was way, way more going on than you running in front of me. You're going to spend weeks remembering that thing you did there for six seconds, I can tell, but nobody else is going to bother thinking about it. Other people spend a lot less time thinking about your past mistakes than you do, just because you're not the center of their worlds. I guarantee to you that nobody except you has even considered blaming Neville Longbottom for what happened to Hermione. Not for a fraction of a second. You are being, if you will pardon the phrase, a silly-dilly. Now shut up and say goodbye. Eliezer Yudkowsky
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother. - Martha Gellhorn

  2. Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings. - Asa Don Brown

  3. Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not. - C.g. Jung

  4. How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole - C.g. Jung

  5. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. - C.g. Jung

More Quotes By Eliezer Yudkowsky
  1. There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to!...

  2. One of chief pieces of advice I give to aspiring rationalists is "Don't try to be clever." And, "Listen to those quiet, nagging doubts." If you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, you don't know how much you don't know, and you...

  3. If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy.

  4. And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star they won’t tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they’re old enough to bear it and when they learn they’ll weep to hear that such a thing as Death...

  5. It's a most peculiar psychology–this business of 'Science is based on faith too, so there! ' Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say 'Science is based on faith too! ' in that angry-triumphal...

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