Shrutarshi Basu 

The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn’t say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a ‘compelling interest’ in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn’t say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances.

Harry Browne, 1996 USA presidential candidate, Libertarian Party

A few years ago I became convinced that a “programmer” is the equivalent of a medieval scribe. Scribes got money for their literacy. That was it. They had this skill which we now consider a fundamental requirement for democracy and/or civilization, a skill without which our world would fall apart. The skill was rare at the time, so they got paid just for having it. My original interpretation was that programmers are people who have a skill which has already become a fundamental requirement for democracy and/or civilization, and if there are any places where our world is falling apart, such as journalism, it’s because people in that field lack this fundamental skill. The moment you find a journalist who has this skill, you find capability and success. Similarly, technical literacy made the Obama campaign happen.

Giles Bowkett in I’m Not A Programmer, Because Programmers Don’t Exist

As a Gen Y outsider, it seems that many of your generation have just the right blend of compassion and entrepreneurial spirit to make innovative differences in the world’s most difficult social problems. Many of you were, after all, raised by former hippies but born in the decade of greed and excess, right?

Hey Gen Y, Please Don’t Take the Easy Way Out

Who cares about symbolism in Dickens? Dickens himself would be more interested in an essay about color or baseball.

Paul Graham in The Age of the Essay

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein (via Wikiquote)