research suggests that our “gut feelings” are more reliable in many situations than the fruits of conscious reasoning.

— Annaka Harris, Conscious

Higher education is the only product where the consumer tries to get as little out of it as possible. —Arnold Kling, “College Customers vs. Suppliers”

— Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Us

Raphael had not spontaneously come into possession of his talents; he had become great by responding intelligently to a sense of inferiority that would have led lesser men to despair.

— Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

We’ve all looked at the mess we’ve just made and then have chosen to leave it for another day. We’ve all felt the relief of seeing our messy program work and deciding that a working mess is better than nothing. We’ve all said we’d go back and clean it up later. Of course, in those days we didn’t know LeBlanc’s law: Later equals never.

— Robert C. Martin, The Robert C. Martin Clean Code Collection

There was a young man who, in his youth, professed a desire to become a great writer. When asked to define “great,” he said, “I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level. Stuff that will make them scream, cry, and howl in pain and anger.” He now works at Microsoft, writing error messages.

— Gerald M. Weinberg, Fiona Charles, Keats Kirsch, Dani Weinberg and Earl Everett, Weinberg on Writing