Small quotes

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Robert_N_Britcher

Software People Rare

“But the number of people who know how software is written is small. Most of us are not talking, or we are saying 'Trust us'.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 17.
Keywords: Programming_quotes People_quotes Software_quotes Trust_quotes Rare_quotes Number_quotes Knowledge_quotes Writing_quotes Small_quotes Talk_quotes Say_quotes

Fred_Brooks

Productivity Magnitude

“Study after study shows that the very best designers produce structures that are faster, smaller, simpler, cleaner, and produced with less effort. The differences between the great and the average approach an order of magnitude.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (1995). The Mythical Man-Month - Essays on Software Engineering (Anniversary Edition) | 1975/1995 (Anniv.). Boston. MA: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 0201835959. Chapter 16, page 202.
Keywords: Design_quotes People_quotes Software_quotes Productivity_quotes Quality_quotes Software_Quality_quotes Project_Management_quotes Excellence_quotes Study_quotes Designer_quotes Produce_quotes Structure_quotes Fast_quotes Simple_quotes Small_quotes Clean_quotes Effort_quotes Project_quotes Management_quotes Difference_quotes Great_quotes Average_quotes Order_quotes Magnitude_quotes

Winston_Churchill

Never Give In

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
  • Source: Winston Churchill in a speech delivered 1941-10-29 at Harrow School, his old alma mater in London.
Keywords: Never_quotes Give_quotes In_quotes Nothing_quotes Great_quotes Small_quotes Large_quotes Petty_quotes Except_quotes Conviction_quotes Honour_quotes Good_quotes Sense_quotes Yield_quotes Force_quotes Apparent_quotes Overwhelm_quotes Might_quotes Enemy_quotes

Albert_Einstein

Search for Truth

“As for the search for truth, I know from my own painful searching, with its many blind alleys, how hard it is to take a reliable step, be it ever so small, towards the understanding of that which is truly significant.”
  • Source: Albert Einstein, Letter to an interested layman (13 Feb 1934). In Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, “Albert Einstein: The Human Side: New Glipses From His Archives”, published in 1981 by Princeton University Press, page 18.
Keywords: Search_quotes Truth_quotes Pain_quotes Persistence_quotes Wisdom_quotes Comprehension_quotes Blind_quotes Alley_quotes Hard_quotes Reliable_quotes Step_quotes Small_quotes Understand_quotes Significant_quotes

Dwight_D_Eisenhower

Crises and Balance

“Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel. But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.”
  • Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell address (17 January 1961).
Keywords: Crisis_quotes Balance_quotes Action_quotes Miracle_quotes Solution_quotes Difficulty_quotes Defense_quotes Cure_quotes Program_quotes Research_quotes Possibility_quotes Consider_quotes Weighing_quotes Private_quotes Public_quotes Economy_quotes Cost_quotes Advantage_quotes Nation_quotes Necessary_quotes Comfort_quotes Desire_quotes Requirements_quotes Duty_quotes Individual_quotes Future_quotes Judgment_quotes Welfare_quotes Progress_quotes Frustration_quotesContinue_quotes Foreign_quotes Domestic_quotes Great_quotes Small_quotes Recurring_quotes Temptation_quotes Feel_quotes Spectacular_quotes Element_quotes Development_quotes Unrealistic_quotes Ill_quotes Agriculture_quotes Dramatic_quotes Expansion_quotes Basic_quotes Applied_quotes Promise_quotes Road_quotes Travel_quotes Proposal_quotes Need_quotes Essential_quotes Imbalance_quotes

David_Epstein

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

Richard_Feynman

Unlike Ordinary Experience

“Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to get used to and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone, both to the novice and to the experienced physicist. Even the experts do not understand it the way they would like to, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should not, because all of direct, human experience and of human intuition applies to large objects. We know how large objects will act, but things on a small scale just do not act that way. So we have to learn about them in a sort of abstract or imaginative fashion and not by connection with our direct experience.”
Keywords: Quantum_quotes Atomic_quotes Ordinary_quotes Experience_quotes Difficulty_quotes Peculiar_quotes Mystery_quotes Novice_quotes Physicist_quotes Expert_quotes Reason_quotes Intuition_quotes Humanity_quotes Large_quotes Small_quotes Scale_quotes Abstraction_quotes Imagination_quotes Connection_quotes Understand_quotes Direct_quotes Apply_quotes Act_quotes Learn_quotes Object_quotes Fashion_quotes

Henry_Ford

Charity

“Why should there by any necessity for almsgiving in a civilized community? It is not the charitable mind to which I object. Heaven forbid that we should ever grow cold toward a fellow creature in need. Human sympathy is too fine for the cool, calculating attitude to take its place. One can name very few great advances that did not have human sympathy behind them. It is in order to help people that every notable service is undertaken. The trouble is that we have been using this great, fine motive force for ends too small. If human sympathy prompts us to feed the hungry, why should it not give the larger desire – to make hunger in our midst impossible? If we have sympathy enough for people to help them out of their troubles, surely we ought to have sympathy enough to keep them out.”
  • Source: Henry Ford. A book. Entitled My Life and Work. Written by Henry Ford in collaboration with Samuel Crowther. Published 1922, Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Chapter XV.
Keywords: Alms_quotes Charity_quotes Civilization_quotes Community_quotes Society_quotes Poverty_quotes Empathy_quotes Need_quotes Sympathy_quotes Calculation_quotes Progress_quotes Help_quotes Service_quotes Action_quotes Trouble_quotes Motivation_quotes Force_quotes Small_quotes Large_quotes Hunger_quotes Desire_quotes Impossibility_quotes Prevent_quotes Mind_quotes Heaven_quotes Forbid_quotes Grow_quotes Cold_quotes Creature_quotes Human_quotes Cool_quotes Attitude_quotes Advance_quotes People_quotes Notable_quotes Undertake_quotes Feed_quotes

Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe

Great Truth

“Nothing is great but truth, and the smallest truth is great... Even a harmful truth is useful, for it can be harmful only for the moment and will lead to other truths, which must always become useful, very much so. Conversely, even a useful error is harmful, for it can be useful only for the moment, enticing us into other errors, which become more and more harmful.”
  • Source: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a letter to Charlotte von Stein in 1787. Reprinted in in “Goethe’s World View: Presented in His Reflections and Maxims” published 1963. Edited by Frederick Ungar, Translated by Heinz Norden, pp. 72-73, Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, New York.
Keywords: Nothing_quotes Great_quotes Truth_quotes Small_quotes Harm_quotes Useful_quotes Moment_quotes Lead_quotes Error_quotes Entice_quotes

Kenneth_W_Kolence

Large System Evolution

“Large systems must evolve, and cannot be produced all at one time. You must have an initial small core system that works really well.”
Keywords: Large_quotes System_quotes Evolution_quotes Production_quotes Incremental_quotes Concurrent_quotes Time_quotes Small_quotes Core_quotes Quality_quotes Initial_quotes Work_quotes Well_quotes

Pierre-Simon_Laplace

Problems of Probability

“The most important questions of life... are indeed for the most part only problems of probability. Strictly speaking it may even be said that nearly all our knowledge is problematical; and in the small number of things which we are able to know with certainty, even in the mathematical sciences themselves, the principal means for ascertaining truth — induction and analogy — are based on probabilities.”
Keywords: Important_quotes Question_quotes Life_quotes Part_quotes Problem_quotes Probability_quotes Near_quotes Knowledge_quotes Problematical_quotes Small_quotes Number_quotes Thing_quotes Ability_quotes Certainty_quotes Mathematics_quotes Science_quotes Principal_quotes Mean_quotes Ascertain_quotes Truth_quotes Induction_quotes Analogy_quotes Base_quotes

Fran_Lebowitz

Talk about Ideas and Wine

“Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.”
Keywords: Talking_quotes People_quotes Great_quotes Average_quotes Small_quotes Wine_quotes Idea_quotes Thing_quotes

Steven_Pinker

Science

“In a large society with writing and institutionalized science, the cost of an exponential number of tests is repaid by the benefit of the resulting laws to a large number of people. That is why taxpayers are willing to fund scientific research. But for the provincial interests of a single individual or even a small band, good science isn’t worth the trouble.”
  • Source: Steven Pinker (1997). How the Mind Works. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06973-0; eISBN 978-0-393-06973-0. Chapter 5 Section: Ecological Intelligence.
Keywords: Large_quotes Society_quotes Writing_quotes Institution_quotes Science_quotes Cost_quotes Exponential_quotes Number_quotes Testing_quotes Repay_quotes Benefit_quotes Result_quotes Law_quotes People_quotes Taxpayer_quotes Willing_quotes Fund_quotes Research_quotes Provincial_quotes Interest_quotes Single_quotes Individual_quotes Small_quotes Band_quotes Worth_quotes Trouble_quotes

Wealth Satisfaction

“The correlation between wealth and satisfaction is positive but small.”
  • Source: Steven Pinker (1997). How the Mind Works. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06973-0; eISBN 978-0-393-06973-0. Chapter 6 Section: The Happiness Treadmill.
Keywords: Correlation_quotes Wealth_quotes Satisfaction_quotes Positive_quotes Small_quotes

Michael_Polanyi

Vast Knowledge First and Second Hand

“Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scientists a number of others by whom he is recognized as such in return, and these relations form chains which transmit these mutual recognitions at second hand through the whole community. This is how each member becomes directly or indirectly accredited by all. The system extends into the past. Its members recognize the same set of persons as their masters and derive from this allegiance a common tradition, of which each carries on a particular strand.”
  • Source: Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (1958), 163.
Keywords: Vast_quotes Knowledge_quotes Tiny_quotes Fragment_quotes Accredit_quotes Dependence_quotes Turn_quotes Complexity_quotes Organization_quotes Member_quotes Community_quotes Science_quotes Judgment_quotes Validity_quotes Value_quotes First-Hand_quotes Reliance_quotes View_quotes Acceptance_quotes Second-Hand_quotes Authority_quotes People_quotes Scientist_quotes Number_quotes Small_quotes Fellow_quotes Eventual_quotes Recognition_quotes Return_quotes Relationship_quotes Chain_quotes Transmit_quotes Mutual_quotes Direct_quotes Indirect_quotes System_quotes Extend_quotes Past_quotes Master_quotes Derive_quotes Allegiance_quotes Common_quotes Tradition_quotes Carry_quotes Particular_quotes Strand_quotes

Eleanor_Roosevelt

Great Minds

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
  • Source: Attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1987-10-28 issue of 'The Hutchinson News', Quotable, Hutchinson, Kansas. (NewsBank Access World News).
Keywords: Great_quotes Mind_quotes Discussion_quotes Idea_quotes Average_quotes Event_quotes Small_quotes People_quotes

George_Sarton

Scientific Progress

“No history of civilization can be tolerably complete which does not give considerable space to the explanation of scientific progress. If we had any doubts about this, it would suffice to ask ourselves what constitutes the essential difference between our and earlier civilizations. Throughout the course of history, in every period, and in almost every country, we find a small number of saints, of great artists, of men of science. The saints of today are not necessarily more saintly than those of a thousand years ago; our artists are not necessarily greater than those of early Greece; they are more likely to be inferior; and of course, our men of science are not necessarily more intelligent than those of old; yet one thing is certain, their knowledge is at once more extensive and more accurate. The acquisition and systematization of positive knowledge is the only human activity which is truly cumulative and progressive. Our civilization is essentially different from earlier ones, because our knowledge of the world and of ourselves is deeper, more precise, and more certain, because we have gradually learned to disentangle the forces of nature, and because we have contrived, by strict obedience to their laws, to capture them and to divert them to the gratification of our own needs.”
  • Source: George (Alfred Léon) Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (1927), Vol. 1, 3-4.
Keywords: History_quotes Civilization_quotes Tolerance_quotes Completion_quotes Explanation_quotes Science_quotes Progress_quotes Doubt_quotes Sufficient_quotes Constitute_quotes Essential_quotes Differences_quotes Early_quotes Course_quotes Period_quotes Country_quotes Small_quotes Saint_quotes Great_quotes Art_quotes Intelligence_quotes Old_quotes Year_quotes Greece_quotes Inferior_quotes Knowledge_quotes Extension_quotes Accuracy_quotes Acquire_quotes System_quotes Positive_quotes Humanity_quotes Activity_quotes True_quotes Cumulative_quotes World_quotes Depth_quotes Precision_quotes Certainty_quotes Gradual_quotes Learning_quotes Disentangle_quotes Force_quotes Nature_quotes Contrive_quotes Strict_quotes Obedience_quotes Law_quotes Capture_quotes Divergence_quotes Gratify_quotes Need_quotes Progressive_quotes

E_F_Schumacher

Module Specialization

“...to undertake to measure the immeasurable is absurd and constitutes but an elaborate method of moving from preconceived notions to foregone conclusions...”
  • Source: Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered. London, England: Bond and Briggs. Part One chapter three.
Keywords: Module_quotes Small_quotes Size_quotes Measurement_quotes Methodology_quotes Bias_quotes Conclusion_quotes Preconception_quotes Undertake_quotes Immeasurable_quotes Absurd_quotes Constitute_quotes Elaborate_quotes Notion_quotes Foregone_quotes

Gerald_Weinberg

Small Teams More Efficient

“In any case, the basic rule for size and composition of programming teams would seem to be this — for the best programming at the least cost, give the best possible programmers you can find sufficient time so you need the smallest number of them. When you have to work faster, or with less experienced people, costs and uncertainties will rise. In any case, the worst way to do a programming project is to hire a horde of trainees and put them to work under pressure and without supervision — although this is the most common practice today.”
  • Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Rule_quotes Size_quotes Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Team_quotes Cost_quotes Slack_quotes Time_quotes Fast_quotes Experience_quotes People_quotes Hiring_quotes Training_quotes Pressure_quotes Supervision_quotes Management_quotes Practice_quotes Common_quotes Basic_quotes Composition_quotes Quality_quotes Small_quotes Rise_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Worse_quotes Way_quotes Project_quotes Horde_quotes Trainee_quotes Work_quotes

Management Deskilling

“Even though the nth-level manager may have originally been a programmer, which is rare enough, he has almost certainly lost any programming ability by the time he reaches these heights. Given the rapid change of programming techniques and hardware, the higher-level manager becomes obsolete even if he retains the skills he originally had and keeps them sharply honed, for those languages and those machines are no longer in use. In a small survey of working programmers, only 15 percent of the first-line managers were thought to be as skillful as the programmers themselves, and none of the higher-level managers.”
  • Source: Chapter 6. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Manager_quotes Level_quotes Programmer_quotes Deskill_quotes Skill_quotes Ability_quotes Technology_quotes Hardware_quotes Language_quotes Machine_quotes Survey_quotes Originally_quotes Rare_quotes Certainly_quotes Time_quotes Lost_quotes Reach_quotes Height_quotes Rapid_quotes Change_quotes Programming_quotes Technique_quotes Higher_quotes Obsolete_quotes Retain_quotes Keep_quotes Hone_quotes Longer_quotes Use_quotes Small_quotes Working_quotes Line_quotes First_quotes Thought_quotes

Stephen_Wolfram

Simple Purpose

“Whenever there’s computational irreducibility we can think of it as exerting a powerful force towards unpredictability and randomness... So for a system to achieve an overall “computationally simple purpose” this computational irreducibility must in some sense be tamed, or at least contained. And in fact it’s an inevitable feature of computational irreducibility that within it there must be “pockets of computational reducibility” where simpler behavior occurs. And at some level the way computationally simple purposes must be achieved is by tapping into those pockets of reducibility. When there’s computational irreducibility it means that there’s no simple narrative one can expect to give of how a system behaves, and no overall “mechanism” one can expect to identify for it. But one can think of pockets of computational reducibility as corresponding to at least small-scale “identifiable mechanisms”... When there’s a “simple overall purpose” being achieved these mechanisms tend to become more manifest.”
Keywords: Computation_quotes Irreducibility_quotes Think_quotes Exertion_quotes Powerful_quotes Force_quotes Toward_quotes Unpredictability_quotes Predictability_quotes Randomness_quotes System_quotes Achieve_quotes Simple_quotes Purpose_quotes Tame_quotes Contain_quotes Inevitable_quotes Feature_quotes Pocket_quotes Reducible_quotes Behavior_quotes Occur_quotes Level_quotes Way_quotes Tap_quotes Narrative_quotes Expect_quotes Overall_quotes Mechanism_quotes Identify_quotes Correspond_quotes Least_quotes Small_quotes Scale_quotes Tend_quotes Become_quotes Manifest_quotes
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