Quote of the Day
If you enjoy programming, philosophy, math, or any number of geeky topics, you're in the right place. Every day, I'll post a random quote from my extensive collection of Kindle highlights. Quotes do not necessarily reflect my views or opinions. In fact, part of my epistemic process is to consume a wide variety of contradictory material.
07/15/2025
Consultant and author Jerry Weinberg has an answer of sorts: He suggests that we don’t work overtime so much to get the work done on time as to shield ourselves from blame when the work inevitably doesn’t get done on time.
— Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Peopleware
07/14/2025
The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.
— Edsger W.Dijkstra, How Do We Tell Truths That Might Hurt?
07/13/2025
Not everyone recognizes that addiction can appear in larger systems and in other guises—such as the dependence of industry on government subsidy, the reliance of farmers on fertilizers, the addiction of Western economies to cheap oil or weapons manufacturers to government contracts.
— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems
07/12/2025
…we have science, and by the means of it we shall find the truth and we shall arrive at it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, the consciousness of life is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws, and the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.
— Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
07/11/2025
At a well-run and successful company, most of your previous technical decisions won’t meet your current quality threshold.
— Will Larson and Tanya Reilly, Staff Engineer
1956 post articles, 392 pages.