Grace Hopper

"I think it is important to remember the past, but not to dwell in it."

"Do not worry about anyone stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

"I have always believed that the military was as much a place for women as for men, so long as you could do the job."

"Programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a fascinating intellectual challenge."

"I had learned that it is a waste of time to think about how well I did versus my male peers."

"Life is not about sitting still and waiting for something good to happen."

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

"If you ask me what takes more brains, writing a good compiler or running a military ship, I'll take the compiler."

"I wanted to write a program that would make it easier for me to write other programs."

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, especially when it comes to innovation."

"You pick any part of what I've done and I'm satisfied with it, as long as it was the best you could do at the time."

"I did not think about being a woman in a man's world. I just did my job."

"I had some good colleagues, some who were smarter than I was, and some less smart. I tried to learn from all of them."

"The female mind is every bit as capable as the male mind. Period."

"In my experience, debugging is harder than writing code in the first place."

"The computer is just a tool, like a hammer or a saw. What matters is what you do with it."

"Teach people as if they are smart, because they are."

"I was just a junior programmer, but I had ideas, and nobody told me my ideas wouldn't work."

"I believe in the importance of maintaining integrity in everything you do."

"Life is not just what happens to you, it is what you make happen."

"I wanted to see if I could write a program in English instead of in machine code."

"Keep your sense of humor. That helps a lot when you're dealing with people."

"I was the third programmer on the first large-scale electronic digital computer. That gave me a different perspective."

"The most important thing in any career is your reputation, and you build that with hard work."

"I believe that women are just as capable as men at solving complex problems."

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

"I have always believed in the power of education to transform lives."

"My code worked. What mattered most to me was that my code worked."

"The world needs more people who are willing to take risks and try new things."

"I learned early on that the best way to predict the future is to invent it."