Software engineering is fundamentally a human discipline.

— Max Kanat-Alexander, Understanding Software

…product processes are, properly, designed for follow-on products. For innovation, one must step outside of process.

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

Ability is discounted without credentials, but the ability to purchase credentials rests, more often than not, on family wealth.

— David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

Brian Little doubts that most people really would like to be like those creative people, had they known about all the catches that came with the territory: eccentricity, social isolation or higher risk for depression and anxiety to list a few of them. There are countless examples of highly regarded creative people who failed in ‘Life’. Nicola Tesla and Vincent van Gogh, to name just two hunter-gatherer types, both died lonely and in poverty.

— Andreas Hofer and Adrienn Raczi, Born Different

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.

— Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought