Proverbs and Axioms

I have many principles that inform how I approach what I do. Some of these are borrowed, all of them are relevant.

• Learn to entertain yourself
• Keep first things first
• Understand solitude
• Without exception, tell the truth
• Walk humbly
• Take relationships seriously
• Say "thank you"
• If you're wrong just say so
• Clear is better than clever
• If the implementation is hard to explain it's probably a bad idea
• Maintenance is usually the most significant cost
• Patterns are not rules
• Rules are not reasons
• Solve one problem at a time
• The less you do, the more of it you can do
• Assume it will break and you will have to fix it
• Simpler is better
• Every house must have it's builder
• It's only worth what you're willing to pay
• If it's not yours, don't touch it
• Show up on time
• In the face of uncertainty, don't
• If it ain't broke, don't fix it
• More often than not, you'll find exactly that for which you were looking
• Safety Third
• Read the instructions
• It's not what you have, it's what you do with it
• In order to know anything you must first believe something
• Truth is found in the correct interpretation of facts
• Use the correct categories and measurements
• Solutions are seldom the same size as they problems they solve
• It is more important to learn how to recover from failure than it is to avoid it
• Coram Deo
• God doesn't call you to be successful; he calls you to be faithful
• Where your treasure is there your heart will be also
• Do your own laundry
• Don't take down a fence until you understand why it was built
• Haste makes waste
• Waste not, want not
• Why matters
• Coherence is a necessary property
• Culture eats strategy
• For what purpose is the system optimized?
• What if the system is working correctly?
• Virtue without humility is vice
• Autonomy and ownership are better than governance and control
• Cliche as it seems, follow the money
• If you want to be good at something, do it every day