I was talking recently to a friend who teaches at MIT. His field is hot now and every year he is inundated by applications from would-be graduate students. "A lot of them seem smart," he said. "What I can't tell is whether they have any kind of taste." -- Paul Graham

I think it is wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that, subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs are not "found" by trial anf error but are the result of a consciously applied design discipline. I want you to raise your quality standards. I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would be enough immortality for me. -- E. W. Dijkstra

The best is the enemy of the good. -- Voltaire

C and Lisp stand at opposite ends of the spectrum; they're each great at what the other one sucks at. -- Steve Yegge, Tour de Babel.

Revolutions come from standing on the shoulders of giants and facing in a better direction. -- Alan Kay

There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most sure-fire just might be procrastination. -- Hara Estroff Marano.

Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

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