it is precisely because we tell our children what to value—money, value for money, status, beauty, power, etc.—that they learn to lose sight of what makes them truly happy.

— Raj Raghunathan, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

Wer Ordnung hält, ist nur zu faul zum Suchen. (If you keep things tidily ordered, you’re just too lazy to go searching.) German proverb…

— Martin Kleppmann, Designing Data-Intensive Applications

…experiments comparing the effects of genuine drugs as compared to those of sugar pills show that between 60 percent and 90 percent of drugs depend, to some extent, on the placebo effect for their effectiveness.

— Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds

…it is success in the absence of sufficient power that defines leadership.

— Tom DeMarco, Slack

Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first, from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.

— Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life