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

Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay

A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. -- Peter Seebach

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (attributed)

In terms of energy, it's better to make a wrong choice than none at all. -- George Leonard, Mastery.

Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. -- Ancient Eastern adage

Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. ~Dr. APJ Kalam

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. –Steve Jobs

The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha