Our greatest enemies are ultimately not our political adversaries but entropy, evolution (in the form of pestilence and the flaws in human nature), and most of all ignorance—a shortfall of knowledge of how best to solve our problems.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

Software development has a long tradition of people so busy thinking about software development they don’t have time to develop software.

— Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres, Extreme Programming Explained

Expectations create reality, or at least color it. If you expect the worst from people, technology, or an organization, then that’s what you’re primed to see.

— Andy Hunt, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

The psychological experiments on individuals showing “biases” do not allow us to automatically understand aggregates or collective behavior, nor do they enlighten us about the behavior of groups.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game

Economists examining US and Canadian samples have found that attractive individuals get paid an average of 12–14 percent more than their unattractive coworkers…

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to Actually Change Your Mind