The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words: "I did not have time." -- WestHost weekly newsletter 14 Feb 2003

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)

Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones. -- Alan J. Perlis (Epigrams in programming)

This challenge, viz. the confrontation with the programming task, is so unique that this novel experience can teach us a lot about ourselves. It should deepen our understanding of the processes of design and creation, it should give us better control over the task of organizing our thoughts. If it did not do so, to my taste we should no deserve the computer at all! It has allready taught us a few lessons, and the one I have chosen to stress in this talk is the following. We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremenduous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsec limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers. -- E. W. Dijkstra, The humble programmer

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. -- Cited by Randy Pausch

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. -- Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

I would rather die of passion than of boredom. –Vincent van Gogh

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. –Bill Cosby

Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill