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

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

If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as *lines produced* but as *lines spent*. -- Edsger Dijkstra

I was talking recently to a friend who teaches at MIT. His field is hot now and every year he is inundated by applications from would-be graduate students. "A lot of them seem smart," he said. "What I can't tell is whether they have any kind of taste." -- Paul Graham

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. -- Anonymous

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. -- J. B. Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ, 1709

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear. –Rosa Parks