Research demonstrates that givers sink to the bottom of the success ladder. Across a wide range of important occupations, givers are at a disadvantage: they make others better off but sacrifice their own success in the process.

— Adam M. Grant Ph.D., Give and Take

Don’t you think it a good principle that one shouldn’t respect all human opinions, but only some and not others … that one should respect the good ones, but not the bad ones?… And good ones are those of people with understanding, whereas bad ones are those of people without it … So my good friend, we shouldn’t care all that much about what the populace will say of us, but about what the expert on matters of justice and injustice will say.

— Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

While Agile may make easy problems a bit easier, it doesn’t help with the hard problems. It’s appealing to programmers, but to make software engineering more of an engineering discipline, something else is needed.

— Adam Barr, The Problem with Software

Designing hardware is more expensive than designing software. It’s unlikely that a hardware designer would construct a system that used six different incompatible methods to do the same thing before breakfast. But because there isn’t the same up-front cost in software, software designers are often less careful.

— Jonathan E. Steinhart, The Secret Life of Programs

We may attack your beliefs. But only those who believe blindly, greedily or half-heartedly will be bothered by our brand of mockery. To question their beliefs threatens them; it makes a secret part of them ashamed, and they get riled up and start smiting.

— Subgenius Foundation, Book of the Subgenius