A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm.

I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency?

An unlimited-length file name is a file. The content of a file is its own best name.

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.

When you have to choose among methods, your locus of attention is drawn from the task and temporarily becomes the decision itself.

Once the product's task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design.

What users want is convenience and results.