Men will say ‘I love you’ to get women into bed with them; women will say ‘I love you’ to get men into marriage with them; both will say ‘I love you’ to keep fear at bay, to convince themselves of the deed by the word, to assure themselves that the promised condition has arrived, to deceive themselves that it hasn’t yet gone away.

— Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Most people do not change because of vision alone—they change because of pain.

— Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

Valuing “responding to change over following a plan” is another way of saying “don’t expect me to be able to predict what I will get done,”

— Adam Barr, The Problem With Software

Valuing “responding to change over following a plan” is another way of saying “don’t expect me to be able to predict what I will get done,”

— Adam Barr, The Problem With Software

(The correlation between a person’s score on the SAT and on the standard IQ test is very high.) A critic could point out that if we gave slots at top universities to candidates with red hair, we would quickly live in a world in which being a redhead correlated with high income, elevated status, and other positive outcomes

— Paul Bloom, Against Empathy