The basic distinction between the individual and the crowd is that the individual acts after reasoning, deliberation, and analysis; a crowd acts on feeling, emotion, and impulses.

— Brendan Moynihan, What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars

A young man wants to marry Bill Gates’s daughter. He goes to Bill Gates and asks for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The billionaire suspiciously asks the young man, “Who are you? I will only marry my daughter to the CEO of The Bank of America.” “No problem,” says the young man and leaves. He goes to the Bank of America, applying for the CEO position. When he gets interviewed, the interviewers ask who he is. “I’m the future son-in-law of Bill Gates,” he replies.

— Albert Rutherford, The Elements of Thinking in Systems

…academia has remained inactive and complacent. Not only has research in languages and design methodology lost its glamour and attractivity, but worse, the tools common in industry have quietly been adopted without debate and criticism. Current languages may be inevitable in industry, but for teaching, for an orderly, structured, systematic, well-founded introduction they are entirely mistaken and obsolete.

— Adam Barr, The Problem with Software

Those who are right do not argue. Those who argue are not right.

— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Commercial OSes have to adopt the same official stance toward errors as Communist countries had toward poverty. For doctrinal reasons it was not possible to admit that poverty was a serious problem in Communist countries, because the whole point of Communism was to eradicate poverty.

— Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning…was the Command Line