If there was one high-level finding that stood out, it is that best projects get to be best based on fundamentals. All of us know the fundamentals for good software—the difference is that most projects don’t do them nearly so well and then get into trouble

— Steve McConnell, Rapid Development

This is how we arrive at a broken-windows world: Rules are invoked but not enforced. Principles are idealized but not defended. International law is treated not as a complement to traditional geopolitical leadership but as the superior alternative to it.

— Bret Stephens, America in Retreat

The great gods of programming said, “Thou shalt put printf statements in your program at the point where you think it’s gone wrong, recompile, and run it.”

— Peter Seibel, Coders at Work

As I was coming up as an engineer, the advice I always heard was, “Design for the future. Change is expensive. Make it cheap by anticipating it.” What I noticed in practice was that the more change I anticipated, the harder it got to make changes…

— The Four Rules of Simple Design, Corey Haines

The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.

— Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf