A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. -- Peter Seebach

Mastering isn’t a survival instinct; it’s an urge to excel. Mastering is one of the experiences that delineates us from animals. It is striving to be more tomorrow than we are today; to perfectly pitch the ball over home plate; to craft the perfect sentence in an article; to open the oven and feel the warm, richly-scented cloud telling you dinner is going to be absolutely extraordinary. We humans crave perfection, to be masters of our domain, to distinguish ourselves by sheer skill and prowess. -- Joesgoals.com

I think that a lot of programmers are ignoring an important point when people talk about reducing code repetition on large projects. Part of the idea is that large projects are intrinsically *wrong*. That you should be looking at making a number of smaller projects that are composable, even if you never end up reusing one of those smaller projects elsewhere. -- Dan Nugent

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

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

The most damaging phrase in the language is, It's always been done that way. -- Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family, and neighbors. ~Napoleon Hill

People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~Tony Robbins

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

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray