This is a small collection of quotes I keep coming back to. The useful ones are not motivational wallpaper. They are reminders about engineering, systems, learning, and how easy it is to fool yourself.

Engineering

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.

– Edsger W. Dijkstra

Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

– Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman

Make it work, make it right, make it fast.

– Kent Beck

Systems

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

– George Box

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

– Commonly attributed to Albert Einstein

The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level.

– Edsger W. Dijkstra

Learning

If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you do not understand it.

– Richard Feynman

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

– Alan Kay

Life

Your time is limited, so do not waste it living someone else’s life.

– Steve Jobs

We are what we repeatedly do.

– Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

– Marcus Aurelius