Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C.S. Lewis

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (attributed)

What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will. -- Paul Graham

Functional programming is to algorithms as the ubiquitous little black dress is to women's fashion. -- Mark Tarver (of "The bipolar Lisp programmer" fame)

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. -- J. B. Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ, 1709

A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer. -- Bill Gates

Do one thing every day that scares you. ~Anonymous

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou

You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction. ~George Lorimer

Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama