There’s a brilliant quote by Tony Hoare in his Turing Award speech about how there are two ways to design a system: “One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

…professional mathematicians usually cite beauty as one of the main reasons they pursue mathematics.

— Francis Su, Mathematics for Human Flourishing

Things are better than they were five hundred years ago, for most people most of the time, and this is undeniable.

— Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay, Cynical Theories

The message is clear—those who do not feel in control of their lives are less successful, and less psychologically and physically healthy, than those who do feel in control.

— Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds

Wallace was wrong to say that “you have to be willing to look honestly at yourself and at your motives for believing what you believe, and to do it more or less continually.” You really can’t do that, which, I believe, he discovered: his ceaseless self-examination caused him ceaseless misery and contributed in a major way to his early death.

— Alan Jacobs, How to Think