“When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.”

— Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you'r…" by Ward Cunningham?

Ward Cunningham 69

American computer programmer who developed the first wiki 1949

Related quotes

“Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.

Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Source: Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship

“There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it—it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it—you don't know what right is and you're not a man.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

We The Living (1936)
Source: We The Living Part One Chapter 6

“In the end, you should always do the right thing, even if it's hard. I know that might not help you and that the right thing isn't always so easy to figure out.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

“People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“I try to do the right thing, Holden. But there are times when it’s not obvious what that is.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

“I agree with you,” Holden said. “Right up to the part where you tell me this is one of those times.”
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 28 (p. 298)

“People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in "My $650,100 Lunch with Warren Buffett" by Guy Spier, in TIME (30 June 2008) http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1819293,00.html

“You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Quoting her mother's statement after her son's birth, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

“Life is full of decisions and judgments and guesses, and it gets to the point where you're so accustomed to making them you keep right on making them even when you don't strictly need to. You get into a what if thing, and you start speculating about what you would do if some problem was yours instead of somebody else's. It gets to be a habit. It was a habit Jack Reacher had in spades.”

Lee Child book Running Blind

Source: Running Blind (2000), Ch. 1.

“You get to the point in your life where everything isn't black and white and good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. Now, you might not like that. You might think me very cynical about that. Well f--- it; I don’t care what you think.”

Roy McDonald (politician) (1947) American politician

Reported in Lucian McCarty, "Sen. Roy McDonald Comes to his decision on the same-sex marriage measure after careful consideration, remains firm in his support despite criticism", The Saratogian (June 2011).
This was on Senator McDonald's change of vote from a "no" in 2009 to a "yes" in 2011.

“I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 52

“When you get in situations where you cannot afford to make a mistake, it's very hard to do the right thing. So if you're trying to do the right thing, the right thing might be to eliminate the cost of making a mistake rather than try to guess what's right.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Ward Cunningham 69

Related quotes

Related topics