And if you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all. -- Joel Spolsky

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

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832)

The job of a leader today is not to create followers. It’s to create more leaders. -- Ralph Nader

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter. -- Eric Raymond

Well then. How could you possibly live without automated refactoring tools? How else could you coordinate the caterpillar-like motions of all Java’s identical tiny legs, its thousands of similar parts? I’ll tell you how: Ruby is a butterfly. -- Stevey, Refactoring Trilogy, Part 1.

In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. ~Jane Smiley

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. – Ancient Indian Proverb