Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. (I have made this letter so long only because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.) -- Blaise Pascal (Lettres Provinciales)

Rules of Optimization: Rule 1: Don’t do it. Rule 2 (for experts only): Don’t do it yet. -- M.A. Jackson

Remember: you are alone. Every time you can get help from someone, it is an opportunity: you should eagerly size it. But then, promptly return to normal mode: you are alone and you must be prepared to solve every problem yourself. -- Eric KEDJI

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

The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving ability. -- Randall E. Stross

Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot. If you compete with slaves you become a slave. -- Paul Graham and Norbert Weiner, respectively

If you can dream it, you can achieve it. –Zig Ziglar

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

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. ~Anonymous