“The role of a trainer or consultant is to empower the customer, not to make himself indispensable”

Perfect reusable components are not obtained at the first shot.

C++ is the only current language making COBOL look good

Constants are widely known for the detestable practice of changing their values; we should prepare ourselves against the consequences of such fickleness

Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to!

Careful as they may be, developers of Eiffel libraries will always run into cases in which, after releasing a library class, they suddenly experience what in French is called esprit de l’escalier or wit of the staircase: a great thought which unfortunately is an afterthought.

Software entities (classes, modules, functions, etc.) should be open for extension, but closed for modification.

As Mr. Nagle so competently points out, almost no one uses Eiffel; in fact until recently there were only 9 users. But now a 10th person just started, so we are holding a conference, appropriately titled the TENTH Eiffel USER conference, to celebrate.

I have always felt sympathy towards the biologists who accept to debate creationists. Now I also understand them better; one can fight opinions, not articles of faith.

Eiffel borrows quite openly from several earlier programming languages and I am sure that if we had found a good language construct in C we would have used it as well.

I think Smalltalk is inappropriate for serious industrial developments. After all, run time is a little late to find out whether you have a landing gear.

Incorrect documentation is often worse than no documentation.

Writing a class without its contract would be similar to producing an engineering component (electrical circuit, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) chip, bridge, engine…) without a spec. No professional engineer would even consider the idea.

Correctness is clearly the prime quality. If a system does not do what it is supposed to do, then everything else about it matters little.

Like a clever reply that would have stunned all the other dinner guests – if only you had thought of it before walking down the stairs after the party is over

If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following, then you are just taking a walk.

To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.

I really feel there’s no limitation on what this band can do in the studio or on the stage. That’s an empowering feeling – that we can bring a song to life.

I think you choose how you walk through this life. I think if you choose to participate in a paradigm that is looks-based, if you’re an actor, then it can be empowering in some ways, and it can be really limiting in some ways in terms of time and longevity.

When I take kids into the woods, I tell them, “What we’re going to do today is going to be incredibly dangerous.” And you just see 20 smiles go up.

Alpha was the best thing I ever did. It helped answer some huge questions and to find a simple empowering faith in my life.

The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.

Animals can always read your vibration, and if you are intent on empowering your life, they will often gift you by making special melodies of sound to balance your chakras and tune up your body.