…an institutional demand—for a fixed-price contract for a specific deliverable. Yet this demand runs head-on into the hard fact, argued in Chapter 3, that it is essentially impossible to specify a complete and accurate set of requirements for any complex system except in iterative interaction with the design process.

— Frederick P. Jr. Brooks, The Design of Design

…even for problems that aren’t inherently mathematical, the kind of thinking that you learn in math is essential to programming.

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

…a cursory look at the state, federal, and local budgets show the majority of taxes (around 70%) is simply transferring money from smart people to dumber ones.

— Aaron Clarey, Curse of the High IQ

…understanding will always require some effort.

— Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

The bureaucratization of daily life means the imposition of impersonal rules and regulations; impersonal rules and regulations, in turn, can only operate if they are backed up by the threat of force.

— David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules