We really have to get over the idea that some stuff is just worth knowing even if you never do anything with it. Human memories happily erase stuff that has no purpose, so why try to fill up children's heads with such stuff? -- Roger Schank, Engines for Education
The Work Begins Anew, The Hope Rises Again, And The Dream Lives On. -- Ted Kennedy
The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise. -- Edsger Dijkstra
Il y a très loin de la velléité à la volnt, de la volonté à la résolution, de la résolution au choix des moyens, du choix ds moyens à lapplication. -- Jean-François Paul de Gondi de Retz
While I’ve always appreciated beautiful code, I share Jonathan’s concern about studying it too much. I think studying beauty in music and painting has led us to modern classical music and painting that the majority of us just don’t get. Beauty can be seen when it emerges, but isn’t something to strive for in isolation of a larger context. In the software world, the larger context would be the utility of the software to the end user. -- [A comment on a blog]
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. -- author unknown (quoted in `Robust Systems', Gerald Jay Suseman)
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~Thomas A. Edison
Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. ~Francis Chan
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
You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus