All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection. -- Butler Lampson

Programmers are in a race with the Universe to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, while the Universe is trying to create bigger and better idiots. So far the Universe is winning. -- Rich Cook

I think there’s a world market for about 5 computers. -- Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM, circa 1948

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

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. -- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Only bad designers blame their failings on the users. -- unknown

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. –Anais Nin

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. –Beverly Sills