It should not be hard to distinguish between parents with wishful thinking and parents of truly gifted children. The latter are aware that there is a high price to pay for giftedness (both for the parents and the children) and are not usually very happy about using that label.

— Andreas Hofer and Adrienn Raczi, Born Different

If you think you can’t do a thing, you will not be able to do it. If you think you can do something, then you have a chance of achieving it. Believing doesn’t mean you will instantly be able to, but you’ve got to believe that you can, otherwise you definitely won’t be able to do it. I’ve seen a number of people who I thought could do something brilliant and creative but they didn’t seem to believe in themselves and therefore didn’t, or couldn’t, do it.

— Eddie Izzard, Believe Me

Everyone should feel comfortable being their authentic self. This phrase, while popular, presupposes that the cost of being authentic is the same for everyone. The truth of the matter is that not everyone can reveal themselves without paying a social price, which in some cases is a price too high to pay.

— Ali Almossawi and Alejandro Giraldo, An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language

Well-run organizations value you for what you’re good at. Less well-run companies value you for your identity.

— Will Larson and Tanya Reilly, Staff Engineer

You were born too late to remember a time when the rise of totalitarianism seemed unstoppable, when one country after another fell to secret police and the thunderous knock at midnight, while the professors of free universities hailed the Soviet Union’s purges as progress.

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to Actually Change Your Mind