[csallen]

  > What the article doesn't mention is that the smartest of people perpetually
    ask themselves questions regarding what they believe they understand. It is
    remarkably easy to convince yourself you understand something... when you're
    really just going through the motions

This reminds reminds me of a good quote from Charlie Munger:

"Above all, never fool yourself, and remember that you are the easiest person to fool."

[redschell]

Hey, did he take that from Richard Feynman, or was Feynman first with the quote: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."

[mhartl]

It's a quote from "Cargo Cult Science" (p. 313 of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!):

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. —Richard Feynman

[rokhayakebe]

Curious. Did you remember the page of the top or did you look it up?

[mhartl]

I have every page of Surely You're Joking memorized.

Bazinga.

[rokhayakebe]

I am adding you to my list of heroes.

[csallen]

It's very possible (likely) that it originally came from Feynman. Munger quotes him often.

[gwern]

Given the relative timelines, and my own citation in my quote collection to Feynman, I'm happy assigning a very high probability to it being Feynman.