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Donald Knuth Quotes

A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

An algorithm must be seen to be believed.

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.

God is a challenge because there is no proof of his existence and therefore the search must continue.

I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people from making use of one's contributions to computer science.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what really advances the field.

Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on eachother, like a wall of mini stones.

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.

The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.

The most important thing in the kitchen is the waste paper basket and it needs to be centrally located.

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.