Each of these short quips contain bookfulls of wisdom. — KK

• The world is a museum of other people’s passion projects. — John Collison

• If you are like most people, then like most people, you don't know you're like most people. ― Daniel Gilbert

• I oscillate between thinking I am crazy, and thinking I am not crazy enough. — Joyce Carol Oates

• The cause of death is birth. — David Hockney

• When dreaming, imagine success. When preparing, imagine failure. — James Clear

• Today is the worst AI will ever be. — Alex Irpan

• We are never definitely right; we can only be sure we are definitely wrong. — Richard Feynman

• The things you do badly are as much part of your style as the things you do well. — Martin Scorsese

• Self employment is a never-ending contest between the world’s worst manager and the world’s laziest employee. — Daniel Akst

• If you want new ideas, read old books. — Shane Parrish

• I’m thinking of Leonard Nimoy’s spiritual journey from writing I Am Not Spock (1975) to writing I Am Spock (1995). This is a journey we all must make. — Tim Kreider

• This present moment was once the unimaginable future — Stewart Brand

This web tool will help you stretch your time off by identifying all the government holidays in your country and highlighting the best weeks in the year to schedule your vacation. — CD

This short wordless video features a dozen or so kitchen tips, all new to me. Most of them are practical. I've already tried the lettuce-chopping technique and I'm not going back to the way I used to do it. — MF

The Dash Rapid Egg Cooker ($19) is incredibly easy to use and allows me to make anywhere from 1 to 6 hard-boiled eggs at a time. I often crave hard-boiled eggs in the moment, when I don’t have the time to boil them on the stove and then let them sit, so I appreciate how fast and convenient it is. Plus, it's lightweight and compact, making it easy to store in my cupboard alongside other kitchen tools without taking up too much space. — CD

The strangest book I own is the Secret Museum of Mankind. It is a thick book of a thousand grainy black and white photos of tribal people taken over a hundred years ago. The fuzzy photos show costumes and dress, strange tattoos and scarifications, topless women, bizarre religious rituals, cruel punishments, and esoteric practices of cults. The book has no author, no credits, no copyrights, no page numbers, and has the appearance of being reproduced many times without permission. There’s no text in the book except for short unreliable captions that are dated and full of prejudices of that time. I keep coming back to the photos which capture worlds long gone. Despite its titillating gaze, you can see the texture of everyday life for most people with unvarnished realism in a world before electricity, coal, and manufacturing—all revealed with a directness I have not seen published elsewhere. The book is most useful to anyone interested in clothes and fashion as every bit of clothing here was handmade and custom. While used copies are not hard to find, a good digital version has been scanned by Ian Macky, with added index and image grid, and is free here. — KK

A friend shared this guide of bite-sized tips that blend Japanese cultural wisdom and practical life hacks. Examples:

• Always follow the rules: Japan loves rules. Suffocating? Yes, but it makes the machine run smoothly. “People love to follow rules here,” Tokyo-based producer Kaori Oyama says. “It can be tiring, but at the same time it means that generally you know what to expect.”

• Enjoy the silence: Tokyo might be home to nearly 14 million people, but apart from the jingles you’ll hear at the train stations and in the convenience stores, it can be surprisingly quiet. “Very few people speak on the trains,” says Mr Paul McInnes, senior editor of Tokyo Weekender magazine, who has lived in the city since 2000. “It’s a wonderful way to have some quiet space and think about your day.”

— MF