The Hobbit Hole

These are some quotes that I’ve found inspirational/applicable:

It is easier to act yourself into a better way of feeling than to feel yourself into a better way of action.

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.

The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished.

The great and golden rule of art, as well as of life is this: That the more distinct, sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art; and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence of weak imitation, plagiarism and bungling. Great inventors in all ages knew this. Protegenes and Apelles knew each other by this line. Raphael and Michael Angelo and Albert Dürer are known by this and this alone.

I remember a day in class when he leaned far forward, in his characteristic pose — the pose of a man about to impart a secret — and croaked, “If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!” This comical piece of advice struck me as sound at the time, and I still respect it. Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?

Those who are enamored of practice without theory are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based on a sound knowledge of theory.

It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.

You could add four lanes to my carpal tunnel and I still could not write all the code I am dying to write.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take way.

You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by “typed”. Their first response is likely to be “Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?”

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.