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Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.

Aaron Swartz

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Aaron Swartz
Age: 26 †
Born: 1986
Born: November 8
Died: 2013
Died: January 11
Businessperson
Computer Programmer
Internet Activist
Political Activist
Programmer
Wikimedian
Writer
Highland Park
Illinois
Aaron H. Swartz
AaronSw
Aaron Hillel Swartz
Aaron Hillel George Swartz
Knowledge
Steadfastness
Obstinacy
Firmness
Noble
Humility
Becomes
Quality
Unguided
Understanding
Rashness

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Most people's major life changes don't come from reading an article in the newspaper they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are much more convincing and detailed.
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What is this drive? It's the tendency to not simply accept things as they are but to want to think about them, to understand them. To not be content to simply feel sad but to ask what sadness means. To not just get a bus pass but to think about the economic reasons getting a bus pass makes sense. I call this tendency the intellectual.
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Creativity comes from applying things you learn in other fields to the field you work in.
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Now everyone has a license to speak, it’s a question of who gets heard.
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No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough.
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Books are totally useless unless you take their advice. If you just keep reading them, thinking that's so insightful! that changes everything, but never actually doing anything different, then pretty quickly the feeling will wear off and you'll start searching for another book to fill the void.
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But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral - it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
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As the Internet breaks down the last justifications for a professional class of politicians, it also builds up the tools for replacing them.
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There is no justice in following unjust laws.
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Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.
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Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves.
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Life is short ... so why waste it doing something dumb?
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Real education is about genuine understanding and the ability to figure things out on your own not about making sure every 7th grader has memorized all the facts some bureaucrats have put in the 7th grade curriculum.
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Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
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The adults were completely wrong.
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Being around some of the bright lights of the technology world and having them expect great things helps you sit down and do it seriously.
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With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge - we'll make it a thing of the past.
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I don’t want to be happy. I just want to change the world.
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There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.
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Reality is painful -- it's so much easier to keep doing stuff you know you're good at or else to pick something so hard there's no point at which it's obvious you're failing -- but it's impossible to get better without confronting it.
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