Like the sunlight and the firelight that guided our birth, we need a unified humanities and science to construct a full and honest picture of what we truly are and what we can become.

— Edward O. Wilson, The Origins of Creativity

Consider how the syntax of Java has changed since the late ’90s. Think about the bizarre syntax of generics and the bolted-on feel of lambdas. At some point, these languages simply collapse in on themselves in an implosion of arcane grammar and syntax that obscures the simple intentions of the programmers.

— Robert C. Martin, We, Programmers

Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

…violence may well be the only way it is possible for one human being to do something which will have relatively predictable effects on the actions of a person about whom they understand nothing.

— David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

In English we don’t use the word ‘swim’ to describe what a submarine does; but Japanese does use the same word for the movement of humans and submarines through water. That doesn’t tell us anything about oceanography or ship design – just as thought experiments about ‘understanding’ in everyday language use don’t tell us anything useful about cognitive science.

— Michael DeBellis, Arguing With the Chinese Room