"The principle is simple and powerful enough to be Marvin's Fourth Great Secret: If what they've been doing hasn't solved the problem, tell them to do something else."

“Asking for efficiency and adaptability in the same program is like asking for a beautiful and modest wife. Although beauty and modesty have been known to occur in the same woman, we'll probably have to settle for one or the other. At least that's better than neither.”

“When program developers are not territorial about their code and encourage others to look for bugs and potential improvements, progress speeds up dramatically.”

“I believe, however, that humans are the only animals that we know who invents tools for working together - and they have done that as long as we have considered them human.”

“Let’s hope that no system of theory of systems will ever eliminate the other systems – that no approach will be promoted to a dogma, and no group of scientists will become the high priests. Shouldn’t we rather let a hundred flowers bloom...?”

“The power of the Ten Commandments is magnified if you remember the Helpful Model: No matter how it looks, everyone is trying to be helpful.”

“Helping myself is even harder than helping others.”