A guideline in the process of stepwise refinement should be the principle to decompose decisions as much as possible, to untangle aspects which are only seemingly interdependent, and to defer those decisions which concern details of representation as long as possible. -- Niklaus Wirth

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -- Mark Twain

No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side. If you keep waiting, it will comme up. -- Randy Pausch

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

Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file, socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this would necessarily involve a dumbing down. -- VladimirSlepnev

That is one of the most distinctive differences between school and the real world: there is no reward for putting in a good effort. In fact, the whole concept of a "good effort" is a fake idea adults invented to encourage kids. It is not found in nature. -- Paul Graham

People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~Tony Robbins

Eighty percent of success is showing up. –Woody Allen

If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough. –Oprah Winfrey

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington