To do something well you have to love it. So to the extent you can preserve hacking as something you love, you're likely to do it well. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. If you're worried that your current job is rotting your brain, it probably is. -- Paul Graham.

A little learning is a dangerous thing. -- Alexander Pope

A guideline in the process of stepwise refinement should be the principle to decompose decisions as much as possible, to untangle aspects which are only seemingly interdependent, and to defer those decisions which concern details of representation as long as possible. -- Niklaus Wirth

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

Abstraction is a form of data compression: absolutely necessary, because human short-term memory is so small, but the critically important aspect of abstraction is the algorithm that gets you from the name back to the "uncompressed" details. -- Bruce Wilder (blog post comment)

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. -- Official definition of "duck typing"

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates

A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done. ~Vince Lombardi

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky