…progress in science is not a simple line leading to the truth. It is more progress away from less adequate conceptions of, and interactions with, the world…

— Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The goal of science is to make the wonderful and complex understandable and simple—but not less wonderful.

— Herb Simon, Sciences of the Artificial

If life and existence were an enjoyable state, then everyone would reluctantly approach the unconscious state of sleep and would gladly rise from it again. But the very opposite is the case, for everyone very willingly goes to sleep and unwillingly gets up again.

— Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

It’s programming if ‘clever’ is a compliment, but it’s software engineering if ‘clever’ is an accusation.

— Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, and Hyrum Wright, Software Engineering at Google

By definition, what works cannot be irrational; about every single person I know who has chronically failed in business shares that mental block, the failure to realize that if something stupid works (and makes money), it cannot be stupid.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game