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

It’s hard to grasp abstractions if you don’t understand what they’re abstracting away from. -- Nathan Weizenbaum

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. -- William Strunk, Jr. (The Elements of Style)

That is one of the most distinctive differences between school and the real world: there is no reward for putting in a good effort. In fact, the whole concept of a "good effort" is a fake idea adults invented to encourage kids. It is not found in nature. -- Paul Graham

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not so sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein

The lesson of the story might appear to be that self-interested and ambitious people in power are often the cause of wastefulness in developing countries. But self-interested and ambitious people are in positions of power, great and small, all over the world. In many places, they are restrained by the law, the press, and democratic opposition. Cameroon's tragedy is that there is nothing to hold self-interest in check. -- Tim Harford

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. –Teddy Roosevelt

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ~John R. Wooden

You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals. ~Booker T. Washington