In short, the fragilista (medical, economic, social planning) is one who makes you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects potentially severe and invisible.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

Principles without practices are empty shells, whereas practices without principles tend to be implemented by rote, without judgement. Principles guide practices. Practices instantiate principles. They go hand in hand.

— Jim Highsmith, Agile Project Management

Once you own a tool, the path of least resistance is to do whatever the tool provides regardless of whether it meets the team’s needs.

— Robert C. Martin, Clean Agile

here is, unfortunately, a belief (typically among those who have never built production-quality software) that constructing and maintaining software solutions is easy. Often this belief emerges from those who have never seen the software solution to a problem of any magnitude, either because they have dealt only with toy problems (this is a problem for many academics and their students)

— Robert L. Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

It’s great to be proficient at a lot of things. But it’s also great—and arguably more human—to know your limitations

— Peter Hollins, Mental Models