The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. -- Bertrand Russell

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. -- Official definition of "duck typing"

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. -- Mario Andretti

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

Resume writing is just like dating, or applying for a bank loan, in that nobody wants you if you're desperate. -- Steve Yegge.

Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file, socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this would necessarily involve a dumbing down. -- VladimirSlepnev

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama

You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction. ~George Lorimer

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. ~John D. Rockefeller

An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates