Everything that can be invented has been invented. -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

We really have to get over the idea that some stuff is just worth knowing even if you never do anything with it. Human memories happily erase stuff that has no purpose, so why try to fill up children's heads with such stuff? -- Roger Schank, Engines for Education

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter. -- Eric Raymond

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. -- Donald Knuth

You have to write for your audience. I would never write (1..5).map &'*2' in Java when I could write ListFactoryFactory.getListFactoryFromResource( new ResourceName('com.javax.magnitudes.integers'). setLowerBound(1).setUpperBound(5).setStep(1).applyFunctor( new Functor () { public void eval (x) { return x * 2; } })) I'm simplifying, of course, I've left out the security and logging wrappers. -- Reginald Braithwait

Within a computer natural language is unnatural. -- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)

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

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. –Bill Cosby

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. ~Denis Watiley

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. –John Lennon