A CS professor once explained recursion as follows: A child couldn't sleep, so her mother told her a story about a little frog, who couldn't sleep, so the frog's mother told her a story about a little bear, who couldn't sleep, so the bear's mother told her a story about a little weasel... who fell asleep. ...and the little bear fell asleep; ...and the little frog fell asleep; ...and the child fell asleep. -- everything2.com

Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline. -- Bill Clinton

Functional programming is like describing your problem to a mathematician. Imperative programming is like giving instructions to an idiot. -- arcus, #scheme on Freenode

Hence my urgent advice to all of you to reject the morals of the bestseller society and to find, to start with, your reward in your own fun. This is quite feasible, for the challenge of simplification is so fascinating that, if we do our job properly, we shall have the greatest fun in the world. -- E. W. Dijkstra, On the nature of computing science.

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

I think it is wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that, subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs are not "found" by trial anf error but are the result of a consciously applied design discipline. I want you to raise your quality standards. I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would be enough immortality for me. -- E. W. Dijkstra

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~Maya Angelou

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan

Success is...knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others. ~ John C. Maxwell