That is the inevitable human response. We’re reluctant to believe that great discoveries are in the air. We want to believe that great discoveries are in our heads—and to each party in the multiple the presence of the other party is invariably cause for suspicion. -- Malcolm Gladwell, Who says big ideas are rare?

I guess, when you're drunk, every woman looks beautiful and every language looks (like) a Lisp :) -- Lament, #[email protected]

We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It's about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives. -- George Leonard, Mastery.

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

Humans differ from animals to the degree that they are not merely an end result of their conditioning, but are able to reflect on their experiences and strategies, and apply insight to make changes in the way they live to modify the outcome. -- SlideTrombone (comment on "Programming can ruin your life")

Actually, the essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes. -- George Leonard, Mastery.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. –Joshua J. Marine

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. ~Steve Jobs

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself--the invisible battles inside all of us--that's where it's at. –Jesse Owens