In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates contrasts philosophy as the collaborative search for truth with the sophist’s use of rhetoric to gain the upper hand in argument for fame and money. Twenty-five centuries later, this is exactly the salaried researcher and the modern tenure-loving academic. Progress.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

The mistake you make, don’t you see, is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself.

— George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

To accept anything as true means to incur the risk of error. If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyond doubt, I minimise the risk of error but I maximise, at the same time, the risk of missing out on what may be the subtlest, most important and most rewarding things in life.

— E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed

When you read bad guiding policies, you think, “so what?” because its found a way to justify entrenching the status quo. When you read good guiding policies, you think, “Ah, that’s really going to annoy Anna, Bill, and Claire,” because the approach takes a clear stance on competing goals.

— Will Larson, An Elegant Puzzle

Instead of feeling like you are the computer genius, descending from computer heaven to save your poor customer from purgatory, turn the tables around. If you’re, for example, working in the insurance industry, think of your customer as a subject matter expert in insurance from which you have to learn in order to get your job done.

— Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer