Quality is free, but only to those who are willing to pay heavily for it.

— Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Peopleware

To hope, is to act as if you await the possibility of good

— Søren Kierkegaard, The Works of Love

My natural tendency to believe that simple is good has been reinforced. Over and over I see additions that are more complex proving themselves to be detrimental in the long—or short—run. When I’m designing stuff, I pay close attention to my “complexity meter:” when it starts bumping into the red zone, it’s time to redesign stuff.

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

If it is true that all individuals possess dignity simply as a brute fact, one might question why society and powerful institutions need to be rearranged to establish a freer society.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now

Bureaucracy is a construction designed to maximize the distance between a decision-maker and the risks of the decision.

— Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai, Hack Your Bureaucracy