Good programmers use their brains, but good guidelines save us having to think out every case. -- Francis Glassborow

Some people suggest that machines would be friendlier if input could be in a natural language. But natural language is probably the worst kind of input because it can be quite ambiguous. The process of retrieving information from the computer would be so time-consuming that you would be better off spending that time getting the information directly from an expert. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).

Are you willing to wear your white belt? -- George Leonard, Mastery.

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. -- J. B. Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ, 1709

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. -- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. -- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

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

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

There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. ~Ray Goforth

Knowledge is being aware of what you can do. Wisdom is knowing when not to do it. ~Anonymous