Only bad designers blame their failings on the users. -- unknown

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. -- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

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

I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. -- Alan Kay

What do Americans look for in a car? I've heard many answers when I've asked this question. The answers include excellent safety ratings, great gas mileage, handling, and cornering ability, among others. I don't believe any of these. That's because the first principle of the Culture Code is that the only effective way to understand what people truly mean is to ignore what they say. This is not to suggest that people intentionally lie or misrepresent themselves. What it means is that, when asked direct questions about their interests and preferences, people tend to give answers they believe the questioner wants to hear. Again, this is not because they intend to mislead. It is because people respond to these questions with their cortexes, the parts of their brains that control intelligence rather than emotion or instinct. They ponder a question, they process a question, and when they deliver an answer, it is the product of deliberation. They believe they are telling the truth. A lie detector would confirm this. In most cases, however, they aren't saying what they mean. -- The culture code.

The good thing about reinventing the wheel is that you get a round one. -- Douglas Crockford (Author of JSON and JsLint)

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. ~Dale Carnegie

The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning; to create a product or service to make the world a better place. ~Guy Kawasaki

If you’re going through hell keep going. ~Winston Churchill

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne