Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. -- Alan J. Perlis

The lesson of the story might appear to be that self-interested and ambitious people in power are often the cause of wastefulness in developing countries. But self-interested and ambitious people are in positions of power, great and small, all over the world. In many places, they are restrained by the law, the press, and democratic opposition. Cameroon's tragedy is that there is nothing to hold self-interest in check. -- Tim Harford

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

Je ne vous impose aucune contrainte, aucune limite. Surprenez-moi, étonnez-moi, défiez-moi, défiez-vous vous-même. Vous avez le choix: vous pouvez rester dans l'ombre ou en sortir en étant parmis les trop rares exceptions à avoir réussi. L'heure est venue d'aller bien au delà de votre potentiel. L'heure est venue maintenant de descendre vraiment en vous. L'heure est venue de démontrer pourquoi vous êtes l'élite, les quelques élus, les rares lueurs qui offrent à cette compagnie son caractère exceptionnel, sa luminescence. -- Le PDG de NURV, dans "Anti-trust".

In OO, it's the data that is the "important" thing: you define the class which contains member data, and only incidentally contains code for manipulating the object. In FP, it's the code that's important: you define a function which contains code for working with the data, and only incidentally define what the data is. -- almkgor, on reddit

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. -- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programmi ng)

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. –Ann Landers

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. ~Swami Vivekananda

15.Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –Charles Swindoll

You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals. ~Booker T. Washington