"Experimental science is a craft and an art, and part of the art is knowing when to end a fruitless experiment. There is a danger of becoming obsessed with a fruitless experiment even if it goes nowhere."

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Were it not for Occam's Razor, which always demands simplicity, I'd be tempted to believe that human beings are more influenced by distant causes than immediate ones. This would especially be true of overeducated people, who are capable of thinking past the immediate, of becoming obsessed by the remote. It's the old stuff, the conflicts we've never come to terms with, that sneaks up on us, half forgotten, insisting upon action.

— Richard Russo