…being forced to pretend to work, we discovered, was the most absolute indignity—because it was impossible to pretend it was anything but what it was: pure degradation, a sheer exercise of the boss’s power for its own sake.

— David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs

…so the history of modern politics has been a history of finding the right balance between the order brought about by living in a society based on the rule of law, and that rule becoming so draconian as to stifle our freedoms.

— Michael Shermer, Joe Carter, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Ronald Bailey, and Jason Kuznicki, Brain, Belief, and Politics

My grandfather had no time to notice that he was getting old. He had too much work to do . . .

— Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel, The Physics of Sorrow

There seems to be no way out of this paradox—the better job a programming language does for the special purpose for which it was designed, the more limiting it is on the minds of those who use it, if they are faced with potentially new areas of application.

— Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming

Good programmers are a little bit lazy: they sit back and wait for an insight rather than rushing forward with their first idea. That must, of course, be balanced with the initiative to code at the proper time. The real skill, though, is knowing the proper time. That judgment comes only with the experience of solving problems and reflecting on their solutions.

— Jon Bentley, Programming Pearls