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Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.


Edsger Dijkstra

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Mathematics is written for mathematicians.
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS Atheism is the opium of the mathematicians. Atheism is the religion of Mathematics.
BILL GAEDE I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in compute...
ALAN KAY The next chapter is likely to provoke many mathematicians. This can't be helped. Mathematics is not ...
DAVID DEUTSCH All mathematicians live in two different worlds. They live in a crystalline world of perfect platoni...
SYLVAIN CAPPELL Mathematicians, who are only mathematicians, have exact minds, provided all things are explained to ...
BLAISE PASCAL Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.
ANDREW WILES Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language a...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS Two writings of al-Hassār have survived. The first, entitled Kitāb al-bayān wa t-tadhkār [Book o...
AHMED DJEBBAR Even the greatest mathematicians, the ones that we would put into our mythology of great mathematici...
DANIEL TAMMET It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that ...
CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS Pure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied. For what is useful above all i...
G. H. HARDY The mathematicians are the priests of the modern world.
BILL GAEDE People tend to think that mathematicians always work in sterile conditions, sitting around and stari...
EDWARD FRENKEL Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality . . . creative mathematicians ...
ERIC TEMPLE BELL First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate...
ANDRE WEIL It would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.
DANIEL BERNOULLI The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians ha...
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO Most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remain...
BENOIT MANDELBROT [I]t would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.
DANIEL BERNOULLI If there is anything like a unifying aesthetic principle in mathematics, it is this: simple is beaut...
PAUL LOCKHART I would not dare to say that there is a direct relation between mathematics and madness, but there i...
JOHN FORBES NASH, JR. I would not dare to say that there is a direct relation between mathematics and madness, but there i...
JOHN FORBES NASH What is this frog and mouse battle among the mathematicians?
ALBERT EINSTEIN Mathematicians are born, not made.
HENRI POINCARE All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.
THELONIOUS MONK ...beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that...
ALBERT EINSTEIN Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
CARL GAUSS I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize tha...
ANDREW WILES Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of t...
E. T. BELL The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of huma...
VOLTAIRE It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathe...
ALFRED KORZYBSKI It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is tw...
G.K. CHESTERTON Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymor...
ALBERT EINSTEIN Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS Mathematicians have been hiding and writing messages in the genetic code for a long time, but it'...
CRAIG VENTER The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol hav...
PIERRE-SIMON LAPLACE Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any mor...
ALBERT EINSTEIN Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?
HENRI POINCARE Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects.
HENRI POINCARE A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more perman...
ALBERT EINSTEIN A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
ALBERT EINSTEIN He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand with his tail.
NIELS H. ABEL It is easier to square the circle than to get round a mathematician.
AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN I was x years old in the year x^2.
AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN A mathematician's reputation rests on the number of bad proofs he has given.
ABRAM SAMOILOVITCH BESICOVITCH Some cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project or affection, she is so self-endeared.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, that he hath turn'd a heaven unto hell!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, how this spring of love resembleth the uncertain glory of an April day!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Now my love is thaw'd; which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, bears no impression of the thing it...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red...
...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show app...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My love admits no qualifying dross.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love's reason's without reason.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love's best habit is a soothing tongue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love lacked a dwelling, and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
Sh...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love is begun by time; and that I see in passages of proof, time qualifies the spark and fire of it....
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters wh...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters wh...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boist'rous, and it pricks like a thorn.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If they love they know not why, they hate upon no better ground, they hate upon no better a ground.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If love be blind, it best agrees with night.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I know not, sir whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that ...
JAMES M. BARRIE I am not young enough to know everything.
JAMES M. BARRIE God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.
JAMES M. BARRIE Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
JAMES M. BARRIE I believe in courtesy, in kindness, in generosity, in good cheer, in friendship and in honest compet...
ELBERT HUBBARD The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunde...
ELBERT HUBBARD Life in abundance comes only through great love.
ELBERT HUBBARD Live truth instead of professing it.
ELBERT HUBBARD So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally ...
ELBERT HUBBARD Men are punished by their sins, not for them.
ELBERT HUBBARD Death: To stop sinning suddenly.
ELBERT HUBBARD The woman who cannot tell a lie in defense of her husband is unworthy of the name of wife.
ELBERT HUBBARD Editor: a person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to seperate the wheat from the chaff, ...
ELBERT HUBBARD A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
ELBERT HUBBARD A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and ...
ELBERT HUBBARD To know when to be generous and when to be firm -- this is wisdom.
ELBERT HUBBARD If you suffer, thank God! -- it is a sure sign that you are alive.
ELBERT HUBBARD The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a br...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell u...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE "Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot r...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

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Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable c...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life b...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programmin...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Many mathematicians derive part of their self-esteem by feeling themselves the proud heirs of a long...
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EDSGER DIJKSTRA Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA If 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Why has elegance found so little following? That is the reality of it. Elegance has the disadvantage...
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EDSGER DIJKSTRA There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.
EDSGER DIJKSTRA The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approache...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA The traditional mathematician recognizes and appreciates mathematical elegance when he sees it. I pr...
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EDSGER DIJKSTRA Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as ...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA If in physics there's something you don't understand, you can always hide behind the uncharted depth...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would r...
EDSGER DIJKSTRA Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes
EDSGER W. DIJKSTRA The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a s...
EDSGER W. DIJKSTRA Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine proble...
EDSGER W. DIJKSTRA Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it....
EDSGER W. DIJKSTRA Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
EDSGER W. DIJKSTRA The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offens...
EDSGER W. DIJKSTRA The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a s...
E. W. DIJKSTRA Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
E. W. DIJKSTRA Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
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EDSGAR W. DIJKSTRA FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whate...
EDSGAR W. DIJKSTRA The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on...
EDSGAR W. DIJKSTRA The fathers of the field had been pretty confusing: John von Neumann speculated about computers and ...
E. W. DIJKSTRA The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be reguarded as a criminal offen...
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