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“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Rationalizing is not a tool for penetration of reality but a post-factum attempt to harmonize one's own wishes with existing reality.”
― Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

“Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.”
― James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood