Without humility, a programmer is foredoomed to the classic pattern of Greek drama: success leading to overconfidence (hubris) leading to blind self-destruction. Sophocles himself could not frame a better plot (to reveal the inadequacy of our powers) than that of the programmer learning a few simple techniques, feeling that he is an expert, and then being crushed by the irresistible power of the computer (the Deus ex Machina).

— Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming

…there is not much overlap between the kind of software that makes money and the kind that’s interesting to write.

— Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters

Want to guarantee nasty conflicts? Take a word with multiple, fuzzy, definitions, force people to strike an agreement on it, attach large amounts of money to it, and then watch them fight about it a year or two later.

— Michael T. Nygard, Release It!

The philosophy of Ayn Rand has long been in league with a certain kind of adolescence. … many of those who never outgrow her have an immature, autodidactic energy as adults.

— Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Thinking

Turing gave an argument that was supposed to show that mental procedures cannot carry further than mechanical procedures. That argument is inconclusive, Gödel said, because it depends on the supposition that a finite mind is capable of only a finite number of distinguishable states.

— Richard Tieszen, Simply Gödel