L’art qui satisfait le besoin le plus impérieux sera toujours le plus honoré. -- Charles Baudelaire, Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs.

Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle

We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations of success. For most important things, though, success actually requires avoiding many separate causes of failure. -- Jared Diamond

We remember what we learn when we care about performing better and when we believe that what we have been asked to do is representative of reality. -- Roger Schank, Engines for Education

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.

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

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. ~Ralph Nader

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart

Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. ~Dr. APJ Kalam

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon