A person won't become proficient at something until he or she has done it many times. In other words., if you want someone to be really good at building a software system, he or she will have to have built 10 or more systems of that type. -- Philip Greenspun

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for. -- Greek philosopher Epicurus

Making All Software Into Tools Reduces Risk. -- smoothspan.com

Heureux l'étudiant qui comme la Rivière peut suivre son cours sans quitter son lit... -- Sebastien, sur commentcamarche.net

I think it is wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that, subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs are not "found" by trial anf error but are the result of a consciously applied design discipline. I want you to raise your quality standards. I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would be enough immortality for me. -- E. W. Dijkstra

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. -- Thomas Edison

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. –Benjamin Franklin

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ~John R. Wooden

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. ~Jim Ryun