Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of humanity, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.

— Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

You should plan on working 60 hours per week. The first 40 are for your employer. The remaining 20 are for you. During this remaining 20 hours you should be reading, practicing, learning, and otherwise enhancing your career.

— Robert C. Martin, The Clean Coder

…the second mouse gets the cheese.

— Martin Erwig, Once Upon an Algorithm

…if your people aren’t smart enough to think their way through their work, the work will fail. No Methodology will help. Worse still, Methodologies can do grievous damage to efforts in which the people are fully competent.

— Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister, Peopleware

…once you’ve decided to go with a given group, your best tactic is to trust them. Any defensive measure taken to guarantee success in spite of them will only make things worse.

— Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister, Peopleware