“…I don't believe in the idea that there are a few peculiar people capable of understanding math and the rest of the world is normal. Math is a human discovery, and it's no more complicated than humans can understand. I had a calculus book once that said, "What one fool can do, another fool can." What we've been able to work out about nature may look abstract and threatening to someone who hasn't studied it, but it was fools who did it, and in the next generation, all the fools will understand it. There's a tendency to pomposity in all this, to make it all deep and profound…”

Source: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999, p. 15

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

Part 1 : Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, p. 36.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
Context: Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? "I will speak ill of no man," he said, "... and speak all the good I know of everybody." Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. "A great man shows his greatness," says Carlyle, "by the way he treats little men."

Of Boldness
Essays (1625)

Source: Ringworld (1970), p. 96

Of the R100 engineers
Slide Rule, p. 66

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 346
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)

Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 52
Context: The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them.