Bjarne Stroustrup

"The hardest part of programming is not coding, but understanding."

"Every one should understand something about programming, even if they don't program."

"I would strongly recommend checking the documentation before you use a library."

"The most important thing is to have high standards for yourself."

"If you think it's simple, you have misunderstood the problem."

"Correctness is absolutely critical; without it, no other property of the system is relevant."

"Learn the rules before you break them."

"The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits and eventually on our broad world outlook."

"Do not assume that if you had more time or more money, you could solve a problem you cannot solve now."

"Invest in quality; it pays for itself."

"A language that does not affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing."

"The best way to write secure code is to understand the threats."

"Explicit is better than implicit."

"Optimization of the design and implementation is most effective when applied to the most frequently executed parts of a program."

"I believe that the language we use affects the way we think."

"The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places."

"Always measure before you optimize."

"Good design is harder than good code."

"The most important rule in programming is never to trust the user."

"I have no interest in trying to optimize code that hasn't been proven to be a problem."

"Complexity has to live somewhere. If not in the code, then in the specification, the implementation, or the documentation."

"The best programmers are not those who know the most languages or libraries, but those who think the most clearly."

"Use what you need, not what is available."

"The language you choose affects the problems you can solve and the solutions you can imagine."

"I think of C++ as a living language that needs to evolve to meet new needs."

"The worst thing you can do is to optimize before you have a working program."

"Remember that the goal of good design is not to create something clever, but something clear."

"I believe strongly in the principle that interfaces should be complete and minimal."

"The hardest part of getting things right is understanding what the right thing is."

"Measure twice, code once."