Designing software is not done for its own sake in XP. Design is in service of a trust relationship between technical and business people. Weekly delivery of requested functionality is the cornerstone of that relationship. It doesn’t matter what the theoretical best way to design might be. The convenience of the designers is lower on the priority list than maintaining the diverse relationships that create value within the team.

— Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres, Extreme Programming Explained

Blessings and burdens are not mutually exclusive.

— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way

One hundred years from now, our engineering may seem as archaic as the techniques used by medieval cathedral builders seem to today’s civil engineers, while our craftsmanship will still be honored.

— Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmer

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or, even better, a rationalist-proof one.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

You need to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants to compete in this Fourth Industrial Revolution.

— Stephen Orban, Ahead in the Cloud