James Gosling

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as you can, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."

— from Commonly attributed/quoted by him

"The problem with C++ is that it's too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Java is much harder to shoot yourself in the foot with, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off."

— from Interview/Presentation, 1996

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

— from often attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but Gosling has used it in context of software development