半藤一利『幕末史』

一般的な幕末史は，官軍側の薩長史観で語られることが多いが，この『幕末史』はどちらかというとアンチ薩長の観点で語られているので面白い．

• 正直申しまして，攘夷がきちんとした理論でもって唱えられたことはほとんどなく，ただ熱狂的な空気，情熱が先走っていた．
• 「成程西郷という奴は，わからぬ奴だ．少しく叩けば少しく響き，大きく叩けば大きく響く．もし馬鹿なら大きな馬鹿で，利口なら大きな利口だろうといったが，坂本もなかなか鑑識のある奴だヨ．西郷に及ぶことの出来ないのは，その大胆識と大誠意とにあるのだ」---勝『氷川清話』
• どうも歴史には「こういう大事な時にこの人とこの人とを会わせておきたい」といった”意思”があるのではないか．
• アーネスト・サトウが高杉のことを「戦争に負けたくせに魔王の如く怒って威張っていた」と書いています．
• 中岡慎太郎「胆あり識あり，思慮周密，廟堂の論に堪うるものは桂小五郎．識あり略あり，変に臨んで惑わず，機を看て動き，気を以て人に勝つものは高杉東行」
• 松平春嶽が一橋慶喜を評して「百才あって一つの胆力なし，胆力なければ百才ふるえど猿芝居に等しい」
• 薩長「官軍」に攻められて江戸町民がつくった歌「鹿児を出ておのが音をはるクツワ虫 いまに武蔵の露ときえなん」
• 明治初期の狂歌「上からは明治だなどといふけれど　治めるめい（明）と下からは読む」

日本人とユダヤ人

山本 七平 著

• おぼっちゃんほど，自分も人並みの苦労はしたと言いたがる．
• 防衛費などというものは一種の損害保険で，「掛け捨て」になったときが一番ありがたいのだ，ということも日本では通用しない．
• 余りに恵まれるということは，日本人がよく言うように「過ぎたるは及ばざるが如し」で，時にはかえって不幸を招く．
• ユダヤ人の議論好きは有名である．「シオニストが三人よれば五つ政党ができる」と，亡くなった前イスラエル首相エシコル氏は言った．
• 議論とは何十という珍案・愚案を消すためにやるのであって，絶対に，「思いつめた」自案を「死すとも固守」するためでない．
• 奴隷が虐待されたというのは後代の偏見で，最近の研究では非常に大切にされたらしいことがわかっている．
• 皮肉なことにヴァージニア州の最初の奴隷所有者は白人ではなく黒人の地主なのである．従ってこれは，もちろん単なる皮膚の色の問題ではない．
• 口蹄疫という病気にかかった家畜は殺処分される．奇妙な「思想」というウイルスをもった家畜（奴隷）がいたら，伝染を防ぐためにそれら家畜を殺処分するのは当然のこと．アウシュビッツとはまさにそういうものであった．
• 日本人が無宗教だなどというのはうそで，日本人とは，日本教という宗教の信徒で，それは人間を基準とする宗教であるが故に，人間学はあるが神学はない一つの宗教なのである．そしてこの宗教は，「人間とはかくあるべき者だ」とはっきり規定している．つまり一つの基本的宗規が存在するのである．
• どこの国の新聞でも，一つの立場がある．立場があるというのは公正な報道をしないということではない．そうでなくて，ある一つの事態を眺めかつ報道している自分の位置を明確にしている，ということである．読者は，報道された内容と報道者の位置の双方を知って，書かれた記事に各々の判断を下す，ということである．
• 日本教の中心にあるのは，神概念ではなく，「人間」という概念なのだ．
• 日本に来た一人の宣教師がいた．彼が，銅製の仏像の前で一心に合掌している老人に，「金や銅で作ったものの中に神はいない」と言った．老人は「もちろん居ない」と．宣教師は「では，あなたはなぜ，この銅の仏像の前で合掌していたのか」と．老人は「塵を払って仏を見る，如何」と．宣教師はすぐに返事ができずにいると，老人は「仏もまた塵」とひとり言を言って去って行った．
• 日本語を学ぶということは，言語の習得だけではだめで，言外の習得まで入る．
• 「考え」たらソロバンはとまってしまう．意識的思考を極力排除して，無心で半ば放心状態で指を動かす，すると「答えが出る」．答えはあくまでも「出る」のであって「出す」のではない．

What the Dog Saw

Malcolm Gladwell

• We're more willing to gamble when it comes to losses, but are risk averse when it comes to our gains. That's why we like small daily winnings in the stock market, even if that requires that we risk losing everything in a crash.
• His risk of getting throat cancer was something like on in a hundred thousand, almost unimaginably small. He was black swan! The cancer is now beaten, but the memory of it is also Taleb's secret, because once you have been a black swan -- not just seen one but lived and faced death as one -- it becomes easier to imagine another one on the horizon.
• Dogs are really interested in humans. Interested to the point of obsession. To a dog, you are a giant walking tennis ball.
• Osama bin Laden's whereabouts are a puzzle. We can't find him because we don't have enough information.... The problem of what would happen in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein was, by contrast, a mystery..... the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much.
• His chosen drink was vodka. Beer he calls "horse piss".
• Eighty percent of the homeless were in and out really quickly. In Philadelphia, the most common length of time that someone is homeless is one day. And the second most common length is two days. And they never come back.
• Enormous sums of money  are already being spent on the chronically homeless. That kind of money it would take to solve the homeless problem could well be less than the kind of money it took to ignore it.
• Under conditions of stress, the explicit system sometimes takes over. That's what it means to choke.
• Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but they are worlds apart.
• Why are more pedestrians killed crossing the street at marked crosswalks than at unmarked crosswalks? Because they compensate for the "safe" environment of a marked crossing by being less vigilant about oncoming traffic.
• If you make a great number of predictions, the ones that were wrong soon be forgotten, and the ones that turn out to be true will make you famous. ... It's a party trick.
• Students who hold a fixed view of their intelligence care so much about looking smart that they act dumb for what could be dumber than giving up a chance to learn something that is essential for your own success?
• The first impression becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy: we hear what we expect to hear. The interview is hopelessly biased  in favor of the nice.

Physics of the future

Michio Kaku, "Physics of the future"

Quotes:

• In the future, the words "car accident" may gradually disappear from the English language.
• Consciousness, as I see it, is a process that can be ranked on a scale, rather than being a sudden evolutionary event, and it will take many decades for robots to ascent up this scale of consciousness. After all, it took Mother Nature millions of years to develop human consciousness.
• Perhaps we are born with a "happiness set point." Day by day we may oscillate around this set point, but its level is fixed at birth. In the future, via drugs or gene therapy, one may be able to shift this set point, especially for those who are chronically depressed.
• There is an unexpected side effect of having enhanced memory; smart mice are sometimes paralyzed by fear.
• The decoherence problem is the single most difficult barrier to creating quantum computers. Anyone who can solve the problem of decoherence will not only win a Nobel Prize but also become the richest man on earth.
• One of the reasons an electrical plant has to be so close to a city is because of losses in transmission lines. That is why nuclear power plants are so close to cities,...
• Journalists in search of a scandal say, "Follow the money," but astronomers searching for life in space say, "Follow the water."
• (It's sad that in America there is the old expression, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.")
• "Give me a fish, and I will eat for a day. Teach me how to fish, and I will eat forever."
• In the West, there is the expression "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." But in the East, there is another expression: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
• ... These events are so exceedingly rare that the word "unmix" does not exist in the English---or any other---language.
• As the philosopher Immanuel Kant once said, "Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." In my opinion, wisdom is the ability to identify the crucial issues of our time, analyze them from many different points of view and perspectives, and then choose the one that carries out some noble goal and principle.

『俺はまだ本気出してないだけ』

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