The post-modern condition of plural and provisional perspectives, lacking any rational or transcendental ground or unifying world-view, is our own, given to us as an historical fate, and it is idle to pretend otherwise.

— John Gray, Enlightenment’s Wake

Yet the program construct, unlike the poet’s words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

— Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month

Money and culture! In a country like England you can no more be cultured without money than you can join the Cavalry Club.

— George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Confidence comes before success. Success rarely creates confidence.

— Marianne Bellotti, Kill It With Fire

To exercise the love of learning is to flee what is worst in us for the sake of the better, to reach for more in the face of what is not enough.

— Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought