Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he'll come up with something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas "Fscking" Edison.
Neal StephensonThe difference between stupid and intelligent people - and this is true whether or not they are well-educated - is that intelligent people can handle subtlety.
Neal StephensonThey knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.
Neal Stephenson