It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission. -- Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Hopper

Understanding why C++ is the way it is helps a programmer use it well. A deep understanding of a tool is essential for an expert craftsman. -- Bjarne Stroustrap

Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file, socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this would necessarily involve a dumbing down. -- VladimirSlepnev

Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn't just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There's no company on earth that wouldn't benefit from having people become more observant. -- Randy S. Nelson (dean of Pixar University)

Its a shame that the students of our generation grew up with windows and mice because that tainted our mindset not to think in terms of powerful tools. Some of us are just so tainted that we will never recover. -- Jeffrey Mark Siskind in comp.lang.lisp

A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. -- Peter Seebach

Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain. ~Anonymous

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

If you genuinely want something, don’t wait for it — teach yourself to be impatient. ~Gurbaksh Chahal

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs