Blog Posts
Dijkstra: On Elegance
How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity — in short: what mathematicians call “elegance”— are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
Dijkstra: Quick and Dirty
I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself “Dijkstra would not have liked this”, well, that would be enough immortality for me.
Equal Affection
If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.
— W. H. Auden, The More Loving One
Her Eyes
It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.
— Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Her Laughter
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
— Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
Holding the Universe Together
She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.
— J. D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew
Lives Not Lead
Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Obstacles
The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.
— Molière
Perfect
And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien
Dit que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.
— Voltaire
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.
— Confucius (maybe)
Philosophy
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein