[Innovation] comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important. -- Steve Jobs
Functional programming is like describing your problem to a mathematician. Imperative programming is like giving instructions to an idiot. -- arcus, #scheme on Freenode
Lisp programmers know the value of everything but the cost of nothing. -- Alan J. Perlis
What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights us is so great! ... When we win it's with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. ... Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings. -- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Man Watching.
To follow the path: look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master. -- Modern zen Poem
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
You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart
Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value. ~Albert Einstein
Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know, and thous shalt progress. –Maimonides