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.

That is one of the most distinctive differences between school and the real world: there is no reward for putting in a good effort. In fact, the whole concept of a "good effort" is a fake idea adults invented to encourage kids. It is not found in nature. -- Paul Graham

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

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

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

Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM, which is more than any application will ever need. -- Microsoft, on the development of Windows NT, 1992

Education costs money. But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser

Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau

It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot