Major systems have been implemented through sheer coding and debugging prowess, high enthusiasm, and massive overtime—and without systematic design. However, design serves as the foundation for construction, project scheduling, project tracking, and project control, and as such effective design is essential to achieving maximum development speed.

— Steve McConnell, Rapid Development

For first you write a sentence, And then you chop it small; Then mix the bits, and sort them out Just as they chance to fall: The order of the phrases makes No difference at all.

— Lewis Carroll, Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

And do you know what ‘the world’ is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy without beginning or end, a rigid quantum of forces, unyielding as bronze, becoming neither greater nor smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself … a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, in perpetual flux.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power

I would make a strong case that programming languages have not improved qualitatively in the last 40 years.

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

To fear, is to act as if you await the possibility of evil.

— Søren Kierkegaard, The Works of Love