…where free will is absent, the mind is reduced to a mere byproduct of deterministic material reality. Consciousness, including the psychological sensation of intentionality and self-awareness in general, becomes a kind of meaningless sideshow compulsively played by our irrelevant “minds”, as we are forced to call them, to interpret that which they cannot affect.

— Christopher Michael Langan, The Art of Knowing

You will never know for sure if someone is an asshole until he becomes rich.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

If, by contrast, the goal is for everyone in a meeting to be nice to each other and every idea is treated as a good one, you can end up with results nobody is pleased with.

— Jim Whitehurst and Gary Hamel, The Open Organization

Thus, our architects need to shift their thinking away from creating the perfect end product, and instead focus on helping create a framework in which the right systems can emerge, and continue to grow as we learn more.

— Sam Newman, Building Microservices

In what respects would the world be different if this alternative or that were true? If I can find nothing that would become different, then the alternative has no sense.

— William James, Pragmatism