Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts. -- Edsger Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10

I think that a lot of programmers are ignoring an important point when people talk about reducing code repetition on large projects. Part of the idea is that large projects are intrinsically *wrong*. That you should be looking at making a number of smaller projects that are composable, even if you never end up reusing one of those smaller projects elsewhere. -- Dan Nugent

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

An expert is, according to my working definition "someone who doesn't need to look up answers to easy questions". -- Eric Lippert.

Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means. -- Dr. Koichi Kawana

Training research shows that if you get speed now you can get quality later. But if you don't get speed you will never get quality in the long run. -- Philip Greenspun

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. ~Mark Caine

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. ~Steve Jobs