Begin again. Find ease.
— UCSD Yoga Instructor
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (apocryphal)
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
Focus on the students. Graduating great students means you’ll produce great research. Focusing on the research may or may not produce great students.
— Nico Habermann, via David Notkin
Finish it till it’s done.
Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
— Edwin Land
The review you want for your paper should appear in the paper.
— Bill Griswold
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
— Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.
— Ted Turner
Nothing in this 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.
— Calvin Coolidge
The difference between a type system and a program analysis is that, when a type system complains, it is the programmer’s fault.
— Andrew Appel
There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. The other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
— C.A.R. Hoare
Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Most people are out of touch with reality because they confuse the world as it with the world as they think about it and talk about it and describe it.
— Alan Watts
The purpose of abstracting is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.
— Edsger Dijkstra
Mathematics reveals its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love, for its own beauty.
— Archimedes