Top 10 Quotes by David Heinemeier Hansson

Who is David Heinemeier Hansson?

David Heinemeier Hansson is a programmer, entrepreneur, and author. He is the creator of Ruby on Rails, a framework for building web apps. He also co-founded Basecamp, a project management and collaboration software. Dave has written two best-selling books, “Getting Real” and “Remote: Office Not Required.”

What are some of DHH’s top quotes?

1. “There’s nothing that will bring realism into your world as quickly as realizing that you’re out of cash.” 
2. “You’re better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole.”
3. “Secret to productivity is not finding more time to do more stuff, but finding the strength to do less of the stuff that doesnt need doing.”
4. “You can have an idea at 9am and have a product by lunchtime, but that doesn’t mean it was a good idea at 9am.”
5. “I think it’s important to have a sense of perspective about how much impact you actually have in the world. You can easily delude yourself into thinking that you’re more influential than you are.”
6. “Most people don’t do great work because they don’t love their work. They do it for other reasons. Money, prestige, power, control—those are the wrong reasons to do something. If you want to do something great, you have to find a way to love it so much that you can’t imagine doing anything else.”
7. “The biggest challenge isn’t always the work itself, but maintaining your enthusiasm for the work over a long period of time. It’s easy to get excited about a new project, but it’s hard to stay excited about the same project day in and day out for months or years on end.”
8. “Most people don’t achieve great things because they never take the time to think about what they want to do with their lives. They go to school, get a job, and just work on whatever comes their way. But that’s not how you achieve something great. You have to know where you’re going before you can get there.”
9. “Fear is ugly because it makes you irrational. Fear makes you jump to conclusions. Fear makes you reactionary.”
10. “It’s important to be able to work on things that you love, but it’s also important to be able to walk away from them if you need to. If you get too attached to your work, you’ll start to resent it if things don’t go the way you want them to. You have to be able to let go of your work and walk away from it if necessary.”