I read this in the intro to the Revised Report on the Kernel Programming Language:

Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary.

It seems obvious, but so few languages in common use today give more than lip service to this philosophy.

As a corollary, I'd add that if you feel especially clever about some twisting of data structures to solve a programming problem, chances are good that you've uncovered a weakness in your programming language.

This is the gut feeling I left Python with. The Python object model has become disproportionately powerful (with many complex subtleties and subtle complexities) to help overcome weaknesses elsewhere in the language. Interesting problems invariably end up being solved via class magic as there are few other powerful constructs in the language.