The process of learning a culture—enculturation—is partly explicit but mostly implicit. The explicit part can be put into books and taught in seminars or classrooms. Most of culture is acquired by a process of absorption—by living and practicing the culture with those who already share it. No book, including this one, can replace the need to live a culture. But it is possible to use a book as a means of “sensitizing,” of preparing, a person for enculturation—shortening the time required to understand and begin integrating lived experiences.

— David West, Object Thinking

If science is based on “faith,” then science is of the same kind as religion—directly comparable. If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the sick and reveals the secrets of the stars. It would make sense to say, “The priests of science can blatantly, publicly, verifiably walk on the Moon as a faith-based miracle, and your priests’ faith can’t do the same.”

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to Actually Change Your Mind

A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.

— Jon Bentley, Programming Pearls

Every statistic encodes a vision of the world it seeks to measure.

— Ben Orlin, Math With Bad Drawings

Knowing things is not the same as understanding them. Comprehension is not the same thing as analysis. Expertise is a not a parlor game played with factoids.

— Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise