Quotes

On building

• Talk is cheap. Show me the code.

  Linus Torvalds

• First, solve the problem. Then, write the code.

  John Johnson

• Make it work, make it right, make it fast.

  Kent Beck

• Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

  Abelson & Sussman

• Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.

  Bill Gates

• The best error message is the one that never shows up.

  Thomas Fuchs

• Deleted code is debugged code.

  Jeff Sickel

• Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.

  Ralph Johnson

• There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

• Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.

  Linus's Law

• Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

  Steve Jobs

• Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.

  Charlie Munger

• When you stop talking to customers, you stop getting insights about what's wrong and what's right with your product.

  Michael Seibel

• Anyone who succeeds fails a lot, and learns to dust themselves off faster each time. It's the people who fail and just stop trying that fail.

  Sam Altman

• Move faster. Slowness anywhere justifies slowness everywhere.

  Sam Altman

• Price is rarely the most important thing. Somebody feels great when they pay the money, but then they get it home and use it and the joy is gone.

  Tim Cook

On thinking

• The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

  Marcus Aurelius

• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

  Aristotle

• Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

  Albert Einstein

• If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal. Not to people or things.

  Albert Einstein

• The most dangerous phrase in the language is 'we've always done it this way.'

  Grace Hopper

• If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.

  Charles Kettering

• In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

  Yogi Berra

• Well done is better than well said.

  Benjamin Franklin

• If you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of.

  Benjamin Franklin

• The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

  Mark Twain

• It always seems impossible until it's done.

  Nelson Mandela

• A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

  John A. Shedd

• The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinion.

  Leonardo da Vinci

• What you are afraid to do is a clear indication of the next thing you need to do.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

• You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint.

  Warren Buffett

• Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

  Cicero

• The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

  Samuel Johnson

• In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

  Albert Camus

• Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.

  Augusta F. Kantra

• What is to give light must endure burning.

  Viktor Frankl

• A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

  Charles Darwin

• If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

  African proverb

On doing

• The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds.

  Theodore Roosevelt

• Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

  Abraham Lincoln

• Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.

  Michael Jordan

• Why would I worry about missing a shot I haven't taken yet?

  Michael Jordan

• A lot of people say they want to be great, but they're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.

  Kobe Bryant

• It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.

  Muhammad Ali

• If everything seems under control, you just aren't going fast enough.

  Mario Andretti

• If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

  Martin Luther King Jr.

• To be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't: consistent, determined, and willing to work for it.

  Tom Brady

• Doubt can only be removed by action.

  Ted Lasso

• Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

  Lao Tzu

• I don't care what you think about me. I don't think about you at all.

  Coco Chanel

• You can't change the world unless you change yourself.

  Notorious B.I.G.

On technology

• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  Arthur C. Clarke

• The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

  Alan Kay

• The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before.

  Bill Gates

• Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

  Leonardo da Vinci

• The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• Stay hungry, stay foolish.

  Stewart Brand

• The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

  Steve Jobs

• Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.

  Steve Jobs

• The hardest thing when you think about focusing — you think focusing is about saying "Yes." No. Focusing is about saying "No."

  Steve Jobs

• Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.

  Steve Jobs

• You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

  Steve Jobs

• If you embrace that the things that you can do are limitless, you can put your ding in the universe. You can change the world.

  Tim Cook

• Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator.

  Antoni Gaudi

• Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

  Richard Feynman

On leadership

• To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for that which would be his finest hour.

  Winston Churchill

• History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

  Winston Churchill

• This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

  Winston Churchill

• At some point, everything's gonna go south on you and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is.

  Mark Watney

• I'm always asked, 'What's the secret to success?' But there are no secrets. Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.

  Dwayne Johnson

Shakespeare

• Though she be but little, she is fierce.

  Shakespeare

• Brevity is the soul of wit.

  Shakespeare

• We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

  Shakespeare

• The readiness is all.

  Shakespeare

• What's past is prologue.

  Shakespeare

• I must be cruel only to be kind.

  Shakespeare