It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger Dijkstra

Courage is grace under pressure. -- Ernest Hemingway

Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder. -- Erik Naggum

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

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

As builders and creators finding the perfect solution should not be our main goal. We should find the perfect problem. -- Isaac (blog comment)

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln

There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. ~Ray Goforth

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