Being able to “lie” to ourselves that everything is going to be okay, that things happen for a reason, or that some seemingly bad occurrence will turn out for the best is a huge part of emotional resilience. Psychologists call this “cognitive reframing,” and it’s one of the best techniques out there for being a happier, more grounded person.

— Jonathan A. Levi, The Only Skill That Matters

…without a reliable and complete data flow, a Hadoop cluster is little more than a very expensive and difficult-to-assemble space heater.

— Jay Kreps, I Heart Logs

Hedonists have long known that happiness, when aimed at, is harder to achieve. If my strongest desire is that I be happy, I may be less happy than I would be if I had other desires that were stronger. Thus I might be happier if my strongest desire was that someone else be happy.

— Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons

Every advance in epistemology and moral knowledge has reinstated the Sophists.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

Collectively we are genocidal, and individually we are all potential concentration camp guards. We are both the lust for life and the craving for death: they are what make us human.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now