Don’t talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’ (as we put it) through qualities about whose lack no man aware of them likes to speak: all of them had that diligent seriousness of a craftsman, learning first to construct the parts properly before daring to make a great whole. They allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

— Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

Most can’t figure out why one can like rigorous knowledge and despise academics, yet they understand that one can like food and hate canned tuna.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

Many senior developers build the same types of applications year after year, and become bored with the monotony. Most developers would rather write a framework than use a framework to create something useful: Meta-work is more interesting than work. Work is boring, mundane, and repetitive, whereas building new stuff is exciting.

— Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons and Patrick Kua, Building Evolutionary Architechtures

Any time freedom is allowed it will be abused. This is not a flaw in freedom (else police states might be more desirable) but a flaw in humanity.

— Zach Weinersmith, Polystate

When people call you intelligent it is almost always because they agree with you. Otherwise they just call you arrogant.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes