Hyperfocus is the basis for innovative achievement.

— Andreas Hofer and Adrienn Raczi, Born Different

An interesting characteristic of human emotion is that the more painful the Chaos, the greater the perceived value of the New Status Quo…

— Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Peopleware

You have certainly no reason for holding that each person’s own interest is the standard of what is just and right.

— John Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature

I’ve always seen much more in common with writing prose than math. It feels like you’re writing a story and you’re trying to express a concept to a very dumb person—the computer—who has a limited vocabulary. You’ve got this concept you want to express and limited tools to express it with. What words do you use and what does your introductory and summary statement look like? That sort of thing.

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From the Underground