…no logical argument can establish a moral claim. But an argument can establish that a claim under debate is inconsistent with another claim a person holds dear, or with values like life and happiness that most people claim for themselves and would agree are legitimate desires of everyone else.

— Steven Pinker, Rationality

A good programming language should have features that make the kind of people who use the phrase “software engineering” shake their heads disapprovingly.

— Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters

…it is possible to be both ethical and universalist. In theory, yes, but, sadly, not in practice.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game

…we libertarians worry that Hobbes’ social contract can evolve into a state Leviathan that wields so much power that we have even fewer liberties than in the original state of nature.

— Michael Shermer, Joe Carter, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Ronald Bailey, and Jason Kuznicki, Brain, Belief, and Politics

…legacy modernization is less about technical implementation and more about the morale of the team doing the modernizing.

— Marianne Bellotti, Kill It With Fire