To do something well you have to love it. So to the extent you can preserve hacking as something you love, you're likely to do it well. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. If you're worried that your current job is rotting your brain, it probably is. -- Paul Graham.

Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them. -- Alan Perlis

Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. They are rare, much rarer than you think... -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, "The Black Swan".

Des mots simples, quand ils sont bien utilisés, font faire à des gens ordinaires des choses extraordinaires. -- Khaled TANGAO

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]

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

Knowledge is being aware of what you can do. Wisdom is knowing when not to do it. ~Anonymous

I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. –Benjamin Franklin

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe