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

Workers of the world, the chains that bind you are not held in place by a ruling class, a "superior" race, by society, the state, or a leader. They are held in place by none other than yourself. Those who seek to exploit are not themselves free, for they place no value in freedom. Who is it that really employs you and commands you to pick up your daily load? And who is it that you allow to pass judgment on the adequacy of your toil? Who have you empowered to dangle the carrot before you and threaten with disapproval? Who, when you wake each morning, sends you off to what you call your work? Is there an "I want to" behind all your "I have to," or have you been so long forgotten to yourself that "I want" exists only as an idea in your head? If you have disconnected from your soul's desire and are drowning in an ocean of "have to," then rise up and overthrow your master. Begin the journey toward emancipation. Work only in such a way that you are truly self-employed. -- Tim Gallwey, The inner game of work

It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years. -- John Von Neumann, circa 1949

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -- Brian Kernigan

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. -- Philip Greenspun (Greenspun's Tenth Rule)

If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as lines produced but as lines spent. -- Edsger Dijkstra

If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh

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

Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. ~Bruce Lee