Humans differ from animals to the degree that they are not merely an end result of their conditioning, but are able to reflect on their experiences and strategies, and apply insight to make changes in the way they live to modify the outcome. -- SlideTrombone (comment on "Programming can ruin your life")

Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot. If you compete with slaves you become a slave. -- Paul Graham and Norbert Weiner, respectively

Do not accept anything because it comes from the mouth of a respected person. -- Buddha

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

For complex systems, the compiler and development environment need to be in the same language that its supporting. It's the only way to grow code. -- Alan Kay

And if you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all. -- Joel Spolsky

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou

I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing. ~Martha Stewart

Change your thoughts and you change your world. –Norman Vincent Peale

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale