Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. -- Earl of Chesterfield

What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will. -- Paul Graham

More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason - including blind stupidity. -- W.A. Wulf

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -- Mark Twain

The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out. -- Donald Norman

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

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. –Beverly Sills

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand

Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know, and thous shalt progress. –Maimonides