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

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

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (attributed)

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. -- Cicero

So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push you to make things happen, because otherwise you'll be embarrassed to tell us that you haven't done anything new since the last time we talked. -- Paul Graham (a talk at Y Combinator, for startup creators).

New eyes have X-ray vision. [someone that hasn't written it is more likely to spot the bug. "someone" can be you after a break] -- William S. Annis

If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and start focusing on the size of you! ~T. Harv Eker

You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them. ~Michael Jordan

Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting. ~Anonymous

If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission. ~Anonymous