…much of programming is now taught as if it’s just the process of gluing together functions in libraries.

— Jonathan E. Steinhart, The Secret Life of Programs

students who receive honors grades in college-level physics courses are frequently unable to solve basic problems and questions encountered in a form slightly different from that on which they have been formally instructed and tested.

— Howard Gardner, The Unschooled Mind

…poetic genius comes from divinely inspired madness rather than from knowledge…

— Philosophy Now, Anja Publications

if truth is our aim, we must be resigned to achieving it to a very limited extent, and without certainty. To redefine the aim so that its achievement is largely guaranteed, through various forms of reductionism, relativism, or historicism, is a form of cognitive wish-fulfillment. Philosophy cannot take refuge in reduced ambitions. It is after eternal and nonlocal truth, even though we know that is not what we are going to get.

— Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere

time when learning how to learn (and unlearn) is central to success. Instead of hiding from change, let’s embrace it. Each time we try something new, we get better at getting better. Experience builds competence and confidence, so we’re ready for the big changes, like re-thinking what we do.

— Peter Morville, Intertwingled