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130 books
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99 voters
“Intellectual fascination crosses many boundaries.”
― The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
― The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
“Four and a half billion is a number almost beyond reckoning. The current Guinness world record for longevity is held by a French woman who lived to celebrate her 122nd birthday—so humans fall far short of living even for 4.5 billion seconds (about 144 years). All of recorded human history is much less than 4.5 billion minutes. And yet geologists claim that Earth has been around for more than 4.5 billion years.”
― The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
― The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
“All but the most heroically strong among us would slip another step lower in the face of this loss. It is true that hope, no matter how irrational, can sustain us in the darkest of times. But nothing can break us more effectively than hope given and then taken away capriciously. Manipulating these psychological variables is a powerful but double-edged sword.”
― Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
― Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
“Today we experience oxygen in the most intimate exchange. With every breath we take, a tiny portion of the air becomes a part of us, even as a tiny part of us becomes the air. As days pass, our bodies melt away and form again in moment-by-moment chemical reactions with oxygen. Our tissues are replaced over and over again throughout our lives, Earth’s finite store of atoms recycling among air, sea, land, and all its living forms. Most of the atoms that formed your infant body at birth are now dispersed, as your present atoms will be again, if you have the good fortune to live a few more years on this oxygen-rich planetary home.”
― The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
― The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
“The universe is not a miracle. It simply is, unguided and unsustained, manifesting the patterns of nature with scrupulous regularity. Over billions of years it has evolved naturally, from a state of low entropy toward increasing complexity, and it will eventually wind down to a featureless equilibrium. We are the miracle, we human beings. Not a break-the-laws-of-physics kind of miracle; a miracle in that it is wondrous and amazing how such complex, aware, creative, caring creatures could have arisen in perfect accordance with those laws. Our lives are finite, unpredictable, and immeasurably precious. Our emergence has brought meaning and mattering into the world.”
― The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
― The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
Islomjon’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Islomjon’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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