Hooblogger Luke Melia shared this Shaker proverb that has applicability to software:
If it is not useful or necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to make it.
If it is useful and necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to enhance it by adding what is not an integral part of its usefulness or necessity.
If it is both useful and necessary and you can recognize and eliminate what is not essential, then go ahead and make it as beautifully as you can.
— Shaker saying (Shaker Built: The Form and Function of Shaker Architecture (This origin is dubious)
I’d love to get the actual origin of this, but it’s starting to get some circulation in the software community.