Humans differ from animals to the degree that they are not merely an end result of their conditioning, but are able to reflect on their experiences and strategies, and apply insight to make changes in the way they live to modify the outcome. -- SlideTrombone (comment on "Programming can ruin your life")

Hence my urgent advice to all of you to reject the morals of the bestseller society and to find, to start with, your reward in your own fun. This is quite feasible, for the challenge of simplification is so fascinating that, if we do our job properly, we shall have the greatest fun in the world. -- E. W. Dijkstra, On the nature of computing science.

Its a shame that the students of our generation grew up with windows and mice because that tainted our mindset not to think in terms of powerful tools. Some of us are just so tainted that we will never recover. -- Jeffrey Mark Siskind in comp.lang.lisp

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. -- Thomas Edison

In general, we can think of data as defined by some collection of selectors and constructors, together with specified conditions that these procedures must fulfill in order to be a valid representation. -- SICP, What is meant by data?

Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable. -- Ralph Johnson

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe

When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you. ~Lolly Daskal

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~Maya Angelou

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci