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David_Epstein
Giant Undertakings
“Since the 1990s, researcher Bent Flyvbjerg has kept a database that tracks giant undertakings... Only 8.5 percent of projects finished on time and on budget; 0.5 percent did that and delivered the prophesied benefits. Almost every major infrastructure project goes over budget, but at least not by as much as IT projects, which have a greater tendency to go hundreds of percent over budget. The pattern of disaster that Flyvbjerg has documented is relatively simple: With few constraints, exciting projects get too large too fast, going from big idea to giant endeavor extremely quickly.”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 14. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
- Keywords: Since_quotes Research_quotes Database_quotes Track_quotes Giant_quotes Undertaking_quotes Percent_quotes Project_quotes Finish_quotes Time_quotes Budget_quotes Deliver_quotes Prophecy_quotes Benefit_quotes Major_quotes Infrastructure_quotes Go_quotes Information_Technology_quotes Great_quotes Tendency_quotes Hundred_quotes Over_quotes Pattern_quotes Disaster_quotes Documentation_quotes Relative_quotes Simple_quotes Few_quotes Constraint_quotes Excited_quotes Large_quotes Fast_quotes Big_quotes Idea_quotes Endeavor_quotes Quick_quotes
Haiku Way
“Haiku finds depth in the simple, and creativity in constraints that block the path of least resistance... Haiku is small, so you can try easily and iterate quickly. It is in present tense, so it forces you to be in the moment... Haiku is the simplest example of a helpful constraint... It is not a form, it is a way — an attitude. It is a way of being, of eagerly accepting unnecessary obstacles because of where they can lead.”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 233. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
- Keywords: Haiku_quotes Find_quotes Depth_quotes Simple_quotes Creativity_quotes Constraint_quotes Block_quotes Path_quotes Least_quotes Resistance_quotes Small_quotes Try_quotes Easy_quotes Iteration_quotes Quick_quotes Present_quotes Tense_quotes Force_quotes Moment_quotes Example_quotes Help_quotes Form_quotes Way_quotes Attitude_quotes Being_quotes Eager_quotes Accept_quotes Unnecessary_quotes Obstacle_quotes Because_quotes Where_quotes Lead_quotes
Gordon_Glegg
User Specifications
“If you are concerned in making the production of some article quicker, better or cheaper, you will naturally study how it is being done at the moment. It may seem paradoxical but the man least likely to help you is the operator in charge of the machine. The more 'down-to-earth' and 'practical' he considers himself the more 'unpractical' and 'up-in-the-air' he is likely to be from your point of view. He is too near the machine to know why it works. He only knows how it works.”
- Source: Glegg, G. L. (1969). The Design of Design. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0-511-79996-9. Chapter 1, page 12.
- Keywords: Concern_quotes Production_quotes Quick_quotes Fast_quotes Better_quotes Cheap_quotes Study_quotes Paradox_quotes Status_Quo_quotes Operator_quotes Machine_quotes Practical_quotes Perspective_quotes Point_of_View_quotes Knowledge_quotes Unpractical_quotes DownToEarth_quotes UpInTheAir_quotes
Nelson_Goodman
Simple Theories
“For if as scientists we seek simplicity, then obviously we try the simplest surviving theory first, and retreat from it only when it proves false. Not this course, but any other, requires explanation. If you want to go somewhere quickly, and several alternate routes are equally likely to be open, no one asks why you take the shortest. The simplest theory is to be chosen not because it is the most likely to be true but because it is scientifically the most rewarding among equally likely alternatives. We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.”
- Source: Nelson Goodman, Problems and Projects (1972), 352.
- Keywords: Science_quotes Simplicity_quotes Survival_quotes Theory_quotes Falsification_quotes Explanation_quotes Quick_quotes Reward_quotes Alternative_quotes Hope_quotes Truth_quotes Occams_Razor_quotes Retreat_quotes Proof_quotes False_quotes Course_quotes Go_quotes Several_quotes Route_quotes Equal_quotes Probable_quotes Likely_quotes
Aldous_Huxley
Technological and Social Change
“In modern scientific method we have a technique for invention; technological progress proceeds at an accelerating speed. But social change is inevitably associated with technological progress. To quicken the rate of the second is to quicken the rate of the first.”
- Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Words and Behavior within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Henry_Louis_Mencken
Truth and Fiction
“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.”
- Source: Mencken. 'A Little Book in C Major', 1916.
- Keywords: Truth_quotes Strange_quotes Fiction_quotes Accustom_quotes Quick_quotes Cease_quotes
Alan_Perlis
Programming Special Cases
“In programming, everything we do is a special case of something more general - and often we know it too quickly.”
- Source: Perlis, A. J. (1982). Special Feature: Epigrams on programming. ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 17(9), 7–13. http://doi.org/10.1145/947955.1083808
- Keywords: Exception_quotes Special_Case_quotes Programming_quotes Do_quotes Requirements_quotes Generality_quotes Knowledge_quotes Quick_quotes
Gerald_Weinberg
Vending Machines
“When the vending machines had been in the common room, a large crowd always hovered around them — but not particularly for fol-de-rol, as the manager had so quickly assumed... Informal mechanisms always exist and it is dangerous to change things without understanding them.”
- Source: Chapter 4. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
E_O_Wilson
Biological Evolution Outrun By Cultural Change
“Because it is... far slower than Lamarckian evolution, biological evolution is always quickly outrun by cultural change.”
- Source: Chapter 4. On Human Nature (1978). On Human Nature; written by Edward O. Wilson; first edition; published in 1978 by Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0674634411.
- Keywords: Slow_quotes Lamarckian_quotes Evolution_quotes Biology_quotes Quick_quotes Outrun_quotes Culture_quotes Change_quotes
