The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

The first word in software is soft. Software is supposed to be SOFT. It’s supposed to be easy to change. If we didn’t want it to be easy to change, we’d have called it hardware.

— Robert C. Martin, Clean Craftsmanship

This world in which we live –the only world there is –is not only subject to change but is also without goal or purpose. It is also subject to eternal recurrence. The challenge for us is to embrace what seems the ultimate pointlessness: the prospect of repeating our lives in every detail forever.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now

Learning must never stop. Blue dye is gotten from the indigo plant, and yet it is bluer than the plant. Ice comes from water, and yet it is colder than water. The gentleman learns broadly and examines himself thrice daily, and then his knowledge is clear and his conduct is without fault.

— Plakshi Jain, Moral Education in Confucianism

For all species other than us humans, things just are what they are. Our problem is that we’re always trying to figure out what things mean—why things are the way they are. As though the why matters.

— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way