Quotes on Learning

The greater the scientist, the more he is impressed with his ignorance of reality, and the more he realizes that his laws and labels, descriptions and definitions, are the products of his own thought. They help him to use the world for purposes of his own devising rather than understand and explain it.

Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other.

Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

No one has ever known me as clearly as you. No one has ever shown me that love allows everything. Not pretty or safe or easy but something I never knew. Love within reason, that isn't love and I learned that from you.

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Complexity has and will maintain a strong fascination for many people. It is true that we live in a complex world and strive to solve inherently complex problems, which often do require complex mechanisms. However, this should not diminish our desire for elegant solutions, which convince by their clarity and effectiveness. Simple, elegant solutions are more effective, but they are harder to find than complex ones, and they require more time, which we too often believe to be unaffordable

Don't ask what it means, but rather how it is used.

It is my firm belief that all successful languages are grown and not merely designed from first principles

Don't you hate code that's not properly indented? Making it [indenting] part of the syntax guarantees that all code is properly indented.

And simple truth miscalled simplicity

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).

Thinking and spoken discourse are the same thing, except that what we call thinking is, precisely, the inward dialogue carried on by the mind with itself without spoken sound.

Optimization hinders evolution.

A programming language is like a natural, human language in that it favors certain methaphors, images, and ways of thinking.

When certain concepts of TeX are introduced informally, general rules will be stated; afterwards you will find that the rules aren't strictly true. In general, the later chapters contain more reliable information than the earlier ones do. The author feels that this technique of deliberate lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. Once you understand a simple but false rule, it will not be hard to supplement that rule with its exceptions.

It's [programming] the only job I can think of where I get to be both an engineer and an artist. There's an incredible, rigorous, technical element to it, which I like because you have to do very precise thinking. On the other hand, it has a wildly creative side where the boundaries of imagination are the only real limitation.

Learn your language well and command it well, and you will have the first component to life.

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

It AIN'T so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so.