Programs should be written and polished until they acquire publication quality.

Programming is usually taught by examples.

The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision.

Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.

Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.

I am convinced that there is a need for high quality software, and the time will come when it will be recognized that it is worth investing effort in its development and in using a careful, structured approach based on safe, structured languages.

During the process of stepwise refinement, a notation which is natural to the problem in hand should be used as long as possible.