…freedom really is a zero-sum game. The freedom of gods or kings is the measure of human slavery.

— David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

If religion is often about wishing, then existentialism is about willing.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now

The natural tendency of the academic world is to focus on process over product. That’s part of “doing in order to learn,” it’s part of “interesting rather than useful.”

— Robert L. Glass and Tom DeMarco, Software Creativity 2.0

Great inventions generally fall into one of two categories: some are the product of a single person’s creative mind, descending on the world suddenly like a bolt out of the blue; others—by far the larger group—are the end product of a long evolution of ideas that have fermented in many minds over decades, if not centuries.

— Eli Maor, E

People are often too quick to equate morale issues with character flaws. Incentives play a much larger role in who’s effective at an organization than some fanciful notion of their character.

— Marianne Bellotti, Kill It With Fire