And if you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all. -- Joel Spolsky

If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger. -- Frank Lloyd Wright

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

Well, if you talk about programming to a group of programmers who use the same language, they can become almost evangelistic about the language. They form a tight-knit community, hold to certain beliefs, and follow certain rules in their programming. It’s like a church with a programming language for a Bible. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).

Humans aren't rational -- they rationalize. And I don't just mean "some of them" or "other people". I'm talking about everyone. We have a "logic engine" in our brains, but for the most part, it's not the one in the driver's seat -- instead it operates after the fact, generating rationalizations and excuses for our behavior. -- Paul Buchheit

The lesson of the story might appear to be that self-interested and ambitious people in power are often the cause of wastefulness in developing countries. But self-interested and ambitious people are in positions of power, great and small, all over the world. In many places, they are restrained by the law, the press, and democratic opposition. Cameroon's tragedy is that there is nothing to hold self-interest in check. -- Tim Harford

If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough. –Oprah Winfrey

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. ~Audre Lorde

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear. –Rosa Parks

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