The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving ability. -- Randall E. Stross

1 - Creativity and innovation always build on the past. 2 - The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it. 3 - Free societies enable the future by limiting the past. 4 - Ours is less and less a free society. -- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture.

Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and "great thinking". It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice. -- Steven Den Beste

The general principle for complexity design is this: Think locally, act locally. -- Richard P. Gabriel & Ron Goldman, Mob Software: The Erotic Life of Code

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. -- Rush (Freewill)

You can’t get to version 500 if you don’t start with a version 1. -- BetterExplained.com

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. ~Thomas J. Watson

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ~Diane Ackerman

Education costs money. But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu