The power of choice enables us to decide between the call of desire and that of morality… It would… [enable] us to choose even where the alternatives are indifferent; in other cases its choices would be determined by the relative strengths of desires and passions. The will itself is neither free nor unfree. As pure practical reason, it provides us permanently with the option of acting solely on the reason which its own legislative activity gives us [ie, morality]. The power of choice, which enables us to opt for morality or against it, is a free power. Because we can choose, we never have to accede to desires which, though certainly part of ourselves, are caused in us by our encounters with the world outside us.

— Jerome B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

— Ben Orlin, Change Is the Only Constant

Hackers need to understand the theory of computation about as much as painters need to understand paint chemistry.

— Hackers & Painters, Paul Graham

Once an administrator rises to a certain level, nobody ever points out to him again the beauty of a simple declarative sentence, or shows him how his writing has become swollen with pompous generalizations.

— William Zinsser, On Writing Well

Here’s a tough-love life lesson: just because you set your mind to something doesn’t mean you can do it.

— Ben Orlin, Math With Bad Drawings