Code of Honour

• Don’t build the palace before you’ve built a shed you can live in.
• Anything complicated that works grew out of something simple that worked.
• A system with a narrow job outlives a system that wants everything.
• Stock changes only through flows. Watch the taps, not the barrel.
• A locked door keeps the house in order and makes it old.
• Stock isn’t dead weight; it’s a cushion. Size it to the longest breakdown.
• Until you widen the bottleneck, widening the rest is for show.
• Find the wheel that turns by itself, and keep out of its way.
• You don’t make war on a wall. You go round it.
• A debtor is the best advertisement. Provided the debt is written down.
• Fear holds things together until it starts to dissolve them.
• Summer clothes are fine in summer.
• The exam doesn’t ask whether you’re a good man.
• When your work starts being done for free, you’re surplus.
• In a tight machine, a small fault breaks everything.
• Don’t ask “what will happen”. Ask “what happens after that”.
• A promise is worth what the man making it can deliver.
• Watch the people you depend on. Their trouble reaches you as the last piece of news.
• The unexpected happens. Being surprised by it is a luxury.