Quotes About Craftsmanship

There is no such thing as quick and dirty. Anything dirty is slow. The only way to go fast, is to go well.

if the bricks aren't well made, the architecture of the building doesn't matter much.

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

Clean code is not written by following a set of rules. You don't become a software craftsman by learning a list of heuristics. Professionalism and craftsmanship come from values that drive disciplines.

There are two parts to learning craftsmanship: knowledge and work. You must gain the knowledge of principles, patterns, practices, and heuristics that a craftsman knows, and you must also grind that knowledge into your fingers, eyes, and gut by working hard and practicing.

I'm a programmer. I like programming. And the best way I've found to have a positive impact on code is to write it.

There are a lot of things that make up a performance, a lot of technical things. It isn't always just about pulling it up from the darkest recesses of your mind or your heart. It's your experience and your observation.

they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole. —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Think Like a Writer

Al maestro cuchillada.

Cada cual tiene su suerte en las manos, como un escultor la materia que convertirá en figura. Pero con ese tipo de actividad artística es igual que con los demás: nacimos apenas con la capacidad de realizarla. La habilidad para hacer de ese material lo que queramos debe aprenderse y cultivarse atentamente. —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Anyone who would spend years absorbing the techniques of their field, trying them out, mastering them, exploring and personalizing them, would inevitebly find their authentic voice and give birth to something unique and expressive

Un verso [de un poema] quizá pueda llevarnos horas; pero si no parece una inspiración del momento, todo el trabajo habrá sido en vano. LA MALDICIÓN DE ADÁN, WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, 1865-1939

In the absence of genius there is always craftsmanship.

Origami artists have made birds 1/64th of an inch long, and life-size elephants three yards high.

artists of the modern era have carried origami to unprecedented heights of realism and complexity.

Hammer the iron that lies on your anvil instead of daydreaming about working silver.

Those intricate curves and patterns your people create are beyond human eyes and hands to make. Perhaps we wished to avoid a poor imitation that would only have been an ever-present reminder to us of what we had lost. There is a different beauty in simplicity, in a single line placed just so, a single flower among the rocks. The harshness of the stone makes the flower more precious. We try not to dwell too much on what is gone. The strongest heart will break under that strain.

It was a plain table, and unadorned like all of her furnishings, some of which she suspected might be of indifferent workmanship. A trivial matter; so long as furniture did what it was supposed to do, nothing more mattered

You hammered the iron that lay on your anvil instead of daydreaming about working silver.

A workman should know his tools, and not use them to breaking. The same went for people.

The first step to creating something was to figure out its parts. Master Luhhan had taught Perrin that on his first day at the forge. You couldn't make a spade without understanding how the handle fit to the blade. You couldn't make a hinge without knowing how the two leaves moved with the pin. You couldn't even make a nail without knowing its parts: head, shaft, point. Understand the pieces, Perrin.

Being of the Yellow isn't about skill, child," Suana said. "It's about passion. If you love to make things well, to fix that which is broken, there would be a purpose for you here.

Care and a long life go together, blacksmith