When the new automation is in place, there is less total work to be done by the human worker, but what work is left is harder. That is the paradox of automation: It makes the work harder, not easier.

— Tom DeMarco, Slack

A small but typical example of how ‘philosophy’ sends out new shoots is to be found in the case of Georg Cantor, a nineteenth-century German mathematician. His research on the subject of infinity was at first written off by his scientific colleagues as mere ‘philosophy’ because it seemed so bizarre, abstract and pointless. Now it is taught in schools under the name of set-theory.

— Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Reason

The word Refactoring should never appear on a schedule. Refactoring is not the kind of activity that appears on a plan. We do not reserve time for refactoring. Refactoring is simply part of our minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour approach to writing software.

— Robert C. Martin, Clean Agile

Solving problems is a practical skill like, let us say, swimming. We acquire any practical skill by imitation and practice. Trying to swim, you imitate what other people do with their hands and feet to keep their heads above water, and, finally, you learn to swim by practicing swimming. Trying to solve problems, you have to observe and to imitate what other people do when solving problems and, finally, you learn to do problems by doing them.

— G. Polya and John H. Conway, How to Solve It

Agile development is a very effective tool, but it won’t work on a team composed solely of novices and advanced beginners.

— Andy Hunt, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning