1 - Creativity and innovation always build on the past. 2 - The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it. 3 - Free societies enable the future by limiting the past. 4 - Ours is less and less a free society. -- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture.

Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. -- Alan J. Perlis

Humans aren't rational -- they rationalize. And I don't just mean "some of them" or "other people". I'm talking about everyone. We have a "logic engine" in our brains, but for the most part, it's not the one in the driver's seat -- instead it operates after the fact, generating rationalizations and excuses for our behavior. -- Paul Buchheit

Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn't just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There's no company on earth that wouldn't benefit from having people become more observant. -- Randy S. Nelson (dean of Pixar University)

Having large case statements in an object-oriented language is a sure sign your design is flawed. -- [Fixing architecture flaws in Rails' ORM]

Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming. -- Donald Knuth

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice. ~Wayne Dyer