Remember your math: an anecdote is not a trend. Remember your history: the fact that something is bad today doesn’t mean it was better in the past. Remember your philosophy: one cannot reason that there’s no such thing as reason, or that something is true or good because God said it is. And remember your psychology: much of what we know isn’t so, especially when our comrades know it too.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

The counter-culture of the 1960’s, like may other idealistic movements, failed because it did so much preaching from a morally one-up position when nobody had been imprinted or conditioned to accept it as one-up.

— Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising

…some of our most common tools are more like anchors than propellers.

— Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Peopleware

Coupling, like the Lego piece in the night, often isn’t obvious until you step on it.

— Kent Beck, Tidy First?

If you can’t admit to yourself that you’ve done better than others—or if you’re ashamed of wanting to do better than others—then the median will forever be your concrete wall, the place where you stop moving forward.

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to Actually Change Your Mind