The direct pursuit of happiness is a recipe for an unhappy life. -- Donald Campbell

Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming. -- Donald Knuth

You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve. -- Pablo Picasso

We remember what we learn when we care about performing better and when we believe that what we have been asked to do is representative of reality. -- Roger Schank, Engines for Education

That is one of the most distinctive differences between school and the real world: there is no reward for putting in a good effort. In fact, the whole concept of a "good effort" is a fake idea adults invented to encourage kids. It is not found in nature. -- Paul Graham

My dream is that people adopt it on its own merits. We're not trying to bend Ruby on Rails to fit the enterprise, we're encouraging enterprises to bend to Ruby on Rails. Come if you like it, stay away if you don't. We're not going head over heels to accommodate the enterprise or to lure them away from Java. That's how you end up with Java, if you start bending to special interest groups. -- David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby On Rails' creator)

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan

You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them. ~Michael Jordan

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. –Ann Landers

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself--the invisible battles inside all of us--that's where it's at. –Jesse Owens