The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. -- Larry Wall (Programming Perl)

It(mastering)’s knowing what you are doing. -- Joesgoals.com

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. -- Official definition of "duck typing"

Being a programmer is the same way. The only way to be a good programmer is to write code. When you realize you haven't been writing much code lately, and it seems like all you do is brag about code you wrote in the past, and people start looking at you funny while you're shooting your mouth off, realize it's because they know. They might not even know they know, but they know. So, yes, doing what you love brings success, and by all means, throw yourself a nice big party, buy yourself a nice car, soak up the adulation of an adoring crowd. Then shut the fuck up and get back to work. -- Sincerity Theory

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

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C.S. Lewis

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. ~George Bernard Shaw

Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb