Donald Knuth

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

"The notes I'm able to play are limited by my understanding."

"The most important thing in life is the order in which things come."

"I would rather write one page of good code than ten pages of bad code."

"Abstraction is not about ignoring details; it's about hiding them productively."

"Most of the time, the hard part is asking the right question."

"I am convinced that the task of deciding the order of the laws is much more important than writing the laws themselves."

"The key to a good life is to have the right goals."

"It is important to know what you don't know as well as what you do know."

"Give a man a program and he'll be frustrated for a day; teach a man to program and he'll be frustrated for a lifetime."

"The real trouble is that we keep forgetting the lessons of history."

"If you've never tried it before, the first time will probably be a disaster."

"I try always to do the right thing, even when it is difficult."

"The purpose of the algorithm is to provide a way of thinking, not a way of computing."

"Code should be written for humans to read and only incidentally for machines to execute."

"The ability to see patterns is one of the most important skills in mathematics."

"I think the most important thing is to love what you do."

"When you make a mistake, it's important to learn from it and move on."

"Problems that seem hard often have simple solutions if you think about them long enough."

"The real problem is knowing when to stop."

"I try to think of a programming task as a kind of puzzle to be solved."

"The beauty of mathematics is that it allows us to see patterns and connections."

"The most important thing is to have a clear understanding of what you're trying to accomplish."

"Life is short, and there are too many interesting things to do."

"I have always believed that the best way to understand something is to try to explain it."

"The key to success is not how much you know, but how well you think."

"Every detail matters when you're trying to create something of value."

"The most important skill is the ability to learn."

"I think people are capable of far more than they believe they are."

"The real problem is often simpler than it appears at first glance."