The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.

Berkeley hackers liked to see themselves as rebels against soulless corporate empires.

The workstation-class machines built by Sun and others opened up new worlds for hackers.

Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)

Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).

If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.

You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.

Prototype, then polish. Get it working before you optimize it

The easiest programs to use are those which demand the least new learning from the user

When I hear the words "social responsibility," I want to reach for my gun.

The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.

Are you a fortune-teller? A clairvoyant? If not, why anticipate the worst for yourself? We predict events will turn out in a negative way because our self-beliefs are limiting.

Friendship is that virtue by which spirits are bound by ties of love and sweetness and out of many are made one.

Competition is merely the absence of oppression.

Shackled heart, free spirit.--Whoever binds his heart tightly and imprisons it may indulge his spirit in many liberties: I have already said that once. But no one believes me unless he already knows.

Every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us.

The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.

How very hard it is to be a Christian!

When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.

O subtle love! a thousand wiles thou hast, by humble suit, by service, or by hire, to win a maiden's hold,--a thing soon done, for nature framed all women to be won.