Its a shame that the students of our generation grew up with windows and mice because that tainted our mindset not to think in terms of powerful tools. Some of us are just so tainted that we will never recover. -- Jeffrey Mark Siskind in comp.lang.lisp

While I’ve always appreciated beautiful code, I share Jonathan’s concern about studying it too much. I think studying beauty in music and painting has led us to modern classical music and painting that the majority of us just don’t get. Beauty can be seen when it emerges, but isn’t something to strive for in isolation of a larger context. In the software world, the larger context would be the utility of the software to the end user. -- [A comment on a blog]

Since programmers create programs out of nothing, imagination is our only limitation. Thus, in the world of programming, the hero is the one who has great vision. Paul Graham is one of our contemporary heroes. He has the ability to embrace the vision, and to express it plainly. His works are my favorites, especially the ones describing language design. He explains secrets of programming, languages, and human nature that can only be learned from the hacker experience. This book shows you his great vision, and tells you the truth about the nature of hacking. -- Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, creator of Ruby

It was Edison who said ‘1% inspiration, 99% perspiration’. That may have been true a hundred years ago. These days it's ‘0.01% inspiration, 99.99% perspiration’, and the inspiration is the easy part. -- Linux Torvalds

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -- Mark Twain

Humans differ from animals to the degree that they are not merely an end result of their conditioning, but are able to reflect on their experiences and strategies, and apply insight to make changes in the way they live to modify the outcome. -- SlideTrombone (comment on "Programming can ruin your life")

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Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. ~George Bernard Shaw

Fortune sides with him who dares. ~Virgil

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach