It is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger Dijkstra

You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve. -- Pablo Picasso

Normality is the route to nowhere. -- Ridderstrale & Nordstorm, Funky Business

Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word. -- Nassim Taleb

Premature abstraction is an equally grevious sin as premature optimization. -- Keith Devens

The best way to learn to live with our limitations is to know them. --E. W. Dijkstra, The humble programmer

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. ~Bill Gates

The starting point of all achievement is desire. ~Napolean Hill

It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln

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