The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.

If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.

Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.

Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.

Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated.

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!

Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.

Teaching COBOL ought to be regarded as a criminal act.

Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning.

Keep your mindset strong, your heart pure, your intentions kind and your dreams big.

I do love science. My father is a scientist.

It is inconceivable that people are motivated solely or even mainly by external incentives.

Because I'm a young black man driving a really nice, expensive car, I sometimes get harassed when I'm rolling through a ghetto neighborhood.

The heart overwhelmed by grief knows no rest.

National events determine our ideals, as much as our ideals determine national events.

No company in the world would be satisfied with less sales, less customers or less jobs just because it's supposed to be good for the environment.

Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.

As for another profession ... I suppose I'd manage a global-macro hedge fund. I love that kind of stuff. Weird, I know, but I find it fascinating.

Were it not for gravity one man might hurl another by a puff of his breath into the depths of space, beyond recall for all eternity.