Once a critical mass of conversation is on Facebook, then it’s hard to get conversation going elsewhere. What might have started out as a choice is no longer a choice after a network effect causes a phase change.

— Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?

Literature teems with examples of how the logic of morality and that of love obey contradictory principles. Good morals have never saved anyone from being deceived or abandoned.

— Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought

There are no true paradoxes in mathematics, just bad mathematics.

— Lance Fortnow, The Golden Ticket

The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build. No other part of the conceptual work is so difficult as establishing the detailed technical requirements, including all the interfaces to people, to machines, and to other software systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if done wrong. No other part is more difficult to rectify later.

— Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month

We know today that political partisanship is like sports fandom: testosterone levels rise or fall on election night just as they do on Super Bowl Sunday.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now