Thanks Matt Housel for writing “50 Fascinating Things I’ve Read Lately.” This article is a collection of Matt’s favorite recent quotes.  Here are the ones that resonated with me:

“Today, of Americans officially designated as ‘poor,’ 99 percent have electricity, running water, flush toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television, 88 percent a telephone, 71 percent a car and 70 percent air conditioning. Cornelius Vanderbilt had none of these.”
–Matt Ridley

“If fertility drops much below 2.1 babies per woman, the population will shrink unless it is offset by higher immigration. For this reason, a demographic cloud hangs over China. It may be ‘the first country to grow old before it grows rich.’ … Its fertility rate is below two and its working-age population will start to decline around 2015.”
–Greg Ip

“Sudanese people live in unspeakable poverty, yet come to the U.S. and remark on how miserable Americans’ lives are. All we do is work. No time for family, friends, or social gatherings.”
–Adapted from the documentary God Grew Tired of Us

“In school they give you a question and ask you to find an answer. In the real world the answers are everywhere — the Internet, calculators, history books, reference manuals. The trick is asking the right questions.”
–Adapted from speech by Conrad Wolfram

“Small government is better than big government, but size is less important than quality. For example, Sweden’s government spends more than half of gross domestic product while Mexico’s spends only a quarter of its GDP. But Swedish government is efficient and honest while Mexico’s is inefficient and rife with corruption. That’s one reason Sweden is rich and Mexico is poor.”
–Greg Ip

“The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to become poor is to socialize with the rich.”
–Nassim Taleb

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
–John Kenneth Galbraith

“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
–Mark Twain