Maria Konnikova

Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences. As Ortega y Gasset said: “Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.”

—W. H. AUDEN

“Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.”

both cases man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.

Arthur Conan Doyle, the famed creator of Sherlock Holmes,

a single physical defect, lay the moral certainty of his innocence.

So, light that fire, curl up on that couch, and prepare once more to join Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson on their adventures through the crime-filled streets of London—and into the deepest crevices of the human mind

He held the paper close to his eyes and rather sideways, proving not only a high degree of myopia, but marked astigmatism

in learning to understand the layout and functionality of our own brain attic we take the first step to becoming better at exploiting its features to their maximum potential—in other words, to learning how to optimize our own thought process

Today, it is commonly accepted that memory is divided into two systems, one short- and one long-term, and while the precise mechanisms of the systems remain theoretical

By the time he has opened his mouth—even before he has even quite made it to the group’s periphery—you have doubtless already formed any number of preliminary impressions, creating a fairly complete, albeit potentially inaccurate, picture of who this stranger is as a person