Do not accept anything because it comes from the mouth of a respected person. -- Buddha

While I’ve always appreciated beautiful code, I share Jonathan’s concern about studying it too much. I think studying beauty in music and painting has led us to modern classical music and painting that the majority of us just don’t get. Beauty can be seen when it emerges, but isn’t something to strive for in isolation of a larger context. In the software world, the larger context would be the utility of the software to the end user. -- [A comment on a blog]

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.

Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. -- Frederick P. Brooks, No Sliver Bullet.

I think it is wise, and only honest, to warn you that my goal is immodest. It is not my purpose to "transfer knowledge" to you that, subsequently, you can forget again. My purpose is no less than to effectuate in each of you a noticeable, irreversable change. I want you to gain, for the rest of your lives, the insight that beautiful proofs are not "found" by trial anf error but are the result of a consciously applied design discipline. I want you to raise your quality standards. I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well, that would be enough immortality for me. -- E. W. Dijkstra

Sound methodology can empower and liberate the creative mind; it cannot inflame or inspire the drudge. -- Frederick P. Brooks, No Sliver Bullet.

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

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong

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

Whenever you see a successful person you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them. ~Vaibhav Shah