Attitude is no substitute for competence. -- Eric S. Raymond, How to become a hacker

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

J'ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l'indifférence. -- Anatole France

We really have to get over the idea that some stuff is just worth knowing even if you never do anything with it. Human memories happily erase stuff that has no purpose, so why try to fill up children's heads with such stuff? -- Roger Schank, Engines for Education

Never do the impossible. People will expect you to do it forever after. -- pigsandfishes.com

The president was visiting NASA headquarters and stopped to talk to a man who was holding a mop. “And what do you do?” he asked. The man, a janitor, replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon, sir.” -- The little book of leadership

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

Life isn't about getting and having, it's about giving and being. –Kevin Kruse

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.~ Oscar Wilde