Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable.

— David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Every person whose life is touched by software development has equal value as a human being. No one is intrinsically worth more than anyone else. For software development to simultaneously improve in humanity and productivity, the contributions of each person on the team need to be respected. I am important and so are you.

— Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres, Extreme Programming Explained

If you want to advance the state of the art, by all means, do it. But don’t expect to do it rapidly!

— Steve McConnell, Rapid Development

More Christians were killed by fellow Christians in those twenty-four hours (St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre) than by the polytheistic Roman Empire throughout its entire existence.

— Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

Leibniz’s 17th-century breakthroughs led to an 18th-century golden age of symbol pushing, which led to a 19th-century backlash obsessed with axiomatization and rigor, which led to 20th-century work on formal systems and computability, which led to the 21st-century laptop…

— Ben Orlin, Change Is the Only Constant