Top 160 Programming Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Talk is cheap. Show me the code.”

— Linus Torvalds

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2. “It’s harder to read code than to write it.”

— Joel Spolsky

3. “Good software, like wine, takes time.”

— Joel Spolsky

Also featured in: Quality Quotes, Technology Quotes

4. “Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.”

— Linus Torvalds

Also featured in: IT Quotes

5. “Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.”

— Bill Gates

Also featured in: Innovation Quotes

6. “This is a software-powered world.”

— Satya Nadella

Also featured in: Business Quotes

7. “One of my most productive days was throwing away 1,000 lines of code.”

— Ken Thompson

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8. “Nothing works better than just improving your product.”

— Joel Spolsky

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9. “Something is usable if it behaves exactly as expected.”

— Joel Spolsky

10. “Listen to your customers, not your competitors.”

— Joel Spolsky

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11. “Software is eating the world.”

— Marc Andreessen

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12. “Software is the magic thing whose importance only goes up over time.”

— Bill Gates

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13. “Writing code is not production, it’s not always craftsmanship though it can be, it’s design.”

— Joel Spolsky

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14. “The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.”

— Tom Cargill

15. “Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.”

— Alan Turing

16. “Indeed one of the best ways to deflect attacks is to make it look like they’re succeeding. It’s the software equivalent of playing dead.”

— Joel Spolsky

17. “Code never lies, comments sometimes do.”

— Ron Jeffries

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18. “If, at first, you do not succeed, call it version 1.0.”

— Khayri R.R. Woulfe

19. “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”

— Martin Fowler

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20. “eat(); sleep(); code(); repeat();”

— QuoteFancy Wallpaper

21. “Laziness is a programmer’s main virtue.”

— Larry Wall

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22. “Make it work, make it right, make it fast.”

— Kent Beck

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23. “A good programmer is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.”

— Doug Linder

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24. “Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.”

— Richard Stallman

25. “The most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.”

— Bjarne Stroustrup

26. “Confusion is part of programming.”

— Felienne Hermans

27. “The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.”

— Dennis Ritchie

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28. “If you think it’s simple, then you have misunderstood the problem.”

— Bjarne Stroustrup

29. “I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.”

— Kent Beck

Also featured in: Positive Work Quotes, Habit Quotes

30. “Programming allows you to think about thinking, and while debugging you learn learning.”

— Nicholas Negroponte

31. “Programming is learned by writing programs.”

— Brian Kernighan

32. “Clean code always looks like it was written by someone who cares.”

— Robert C. Martin

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33. “There’s a saying in the software design industry: “Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.””

— Larry Wall

34. “There is no place like 127.0.0.1.”

— QuoteFancy Wallpaper

35. “Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books.”

— Alan Turing

Also featured in: Practice Quotes, Quotes About Skills

36. “Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do.”

— Donald Knuth

37. “Coding like poetry should be short and concise.”

— Santosh Kalwar

38. “Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.”

— IEEE Computer Society

39. “The most fundamental problem in software development is complexity. There is only one basic way of dealing with complexity: divide and conquer.”

— Bjarne Stroustrup

40. “90% of the functionality delivered now is better than 100% delivered never.”

— Brian Kernighan

41. “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

— Rick Cook

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42. “The programmers of tomorrow are the wizards of the future. You’re going to look like you have magic powers compared to everybody else.”

— Gabe Newell

43. “Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.”

— Brian Kernighan

44. “You might not think that programmers are artists, but programming is an extremely creative profession. It’s logic-based creativity.”

— John Romero

45. “Programming is a Dark Art, and it always will be. The programmer is fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe: entropy and human stupidity. These are not things you can overcome with a “methodology” or on a schedule.”

— Damian Conway

46. “If you aren’t sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.”

— John Carmack

47. “Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment.”

— Kent Beck

48. “When done well, software is invisible.”

— Bjarne Stroustrup

49. “A program that has not been tested does not work.”

— Bjarne Stroustrup

50. “One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year.”

— David Parnas