Ask a physicist how an atom bomb works, or why time slows down as you approach the speed of light, and she’ll tell you, complete with handwavings and scribbled diagrams. Ask a historian why Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and you’ll end up learning something. But ask an academic philosopher about the meaning of life and you’re quite likely to just get a grumpy remark about it being a badly-formed question.

— Anja Publications, Philosophy Now

Hype is the plague on the house of software. Most software tool and technique improvements account for about a 5 to 35 percent increase in productivity and quality. But at one time or another, most of those same improvements have been claimed by someone to have “order of magnitude” benefits.

— Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, Robert L. Glass

…optimistic scheduling erodes the relationship with the customer because customers lose faith in overly optimistic managers and developers.

— Steve McConnell, Rapid Development

Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry, theory of structures, or thermodynamics, but because they were first pictures—literally visions—in the minds of those who conceived them.

— Eugene Ferguson, Engineering and the Mind’s Eye

users are often unable to articulate exactly what they need, yet they often seem insistent about what they don’t want…once they see it.

— Steve Bell and Mike Orzen, Lean IT