If your estimate is a date, you are really making a commitment, not an estimate.

— Robert C. Martin, Clean Craftsmanship

In practice, “consumerism” often means “consumption by the other guy,” since the elites who condemn it tend themselves to be conspicuous consumers of exorbitant luxuries like hardcover books, good food and wine, live artistic performances, overseas travel, and Ivy-class education for their children.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

It isn’t simply that people behave or even think “irrationally,” but that the conscious control we exert over our behavior has sometimes partial, sometimes little, and sometimes no bearing on our manifest actions.

— Roman Gelperin, Addiction, Procrastination, and Laziness

Researchers solve problems that are solvable, not necessarily ones that are real.

— Adam Barr, The Problem With Software

You do not need to live like this! When did we sign up to be trapped in an endless system of tests and exams which will only lead us on to more soul-destroying work? Who made us slaves to this assessment machine, ants forced into a maze of grades and performance reviews that we’ll stay trapped inside our whole lives? Whoever asked you if you wanted to become a racing rat? We could live for so much more than this

— Luke Tarassenko, The Free Will Exam