You can have premature generalization as well as premature optimization. -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file, socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this would necessarily involve a dumbing down. -- VladimirSlepnev

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. -- Goethe

The only problems we can really solve in a satisfactory manner are those that finally admit a nicely factored solution. -- E. W. Dijkstra, The humble programmer

The wonderful and frustrating thing about understanding yourself is that nobody can do it for you. -- BetterExplained.com

It’s a problem if the design doesn’t let you add features at a later date. If you have to redo a program, the hours you spend can cause you to lose your competitive edge. A flexible program demonstrates the difference between a good designer and someone who is just getting a piece of code out. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).

Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning. ~Robert Kiyosaki

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. –Ann Landers