It is easy, during a review, to review the work product from the point of view of what your own solution approach would be, rather than the solution approach chosen by the developer.

— Robert L. Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

…one thing that’s really important is to not be afraid of your ignorance.

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

…the originator of the Doomsday Clock, Eugene Rabinowitch, came to regret his movement’s strategy: “While trying to frighten men into rationality, scientists have frightened many into abject fear or blind hatred.”

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

An ounce of information is worth a pound of data. An ounce of knowledge is worth a pound of information. An ounce of understanding is worth a pound of knowledge. And an ounce of wisdom is worth a pound of understanding.

— David Komlos and David Benjamin, Cracking Complexity

Isn’t it true that whatever isn’t determined by our genes must be determined by our environment? What else is there? There’s Nature and there’s Nurture. Is there also some X, some further contributor to what we are? There’s Chance. Luck. This extra ingredient is important but doesn’t have to come from the quantum bowels of our atoms or from some distant star. It is all around us in the causeless coin-flipping of our noisy world, automatically filling in the gaps of specification left unfixed by our genes, and unfixed by salient causes in our environment.

— Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves