…when the culture is unhealthy, it’s difficult or impossible to hire the one person who matters most, the one who doesn’t think like all the rest.

— Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Peopleware

If you have a good suite of tests and you are skilled at the discipline of refactoring, then the cost of adding a new feature and updating the design to support that new feature will almost certainly be smaller than the cost of implementing and maintaining all the hooks you might need one day.

— Robert C. Martin, Clean Craftsmanship

Is what you are doing with computers worth doing? Because computers are such fascinating beasts, because programming is such a game, such a joy, we who program computers are in danger of becoming the unwitting pawns of those who would use our toys for not-so-playful ends.

— Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming

Philosophers used to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Computer experts today debate how many transistors can be crammed into a microprocessor by means of this etching process.

— Michio Kaku, Visions

Moral questions are not decided by authorities or settled by fiat. Instead, in truth, we’re all sitting around in the moral fog together, trying to muddle through as best we can.

— Michael-John Turp, Who’s to Say?