Edsger Dijkstra Quotes

We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.

All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the knowledge of nature is interesting to all men.

To-morrow — oh, 'twill never be, If we should live a thousand years! Our time is all to-day, to-day, The same, though changed; and while it flies With still small voice the moments say: "To-day, to-day, be wise, be wise.

The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.

There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must.

Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise.

What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline. My answer to these questions is simple -it is the art of programming a computer. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program.

None of us was born knowing or wise; but men become wise by consideration, observation, experience.

The bell strikes One. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours.

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country.

A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero,--the wise, the good, or the great man,--very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

There's really educated women out there who are feminists and they have read up on their stuff. They can talk to me right now, and school me on some things I've never known, and that's amazing, you are a scholar, you are wise, you are educated. But the unfortunate thing is also the reality, and the fact is, millions of people might not even know who these educated feminists are - hundreds will, thousands maybe.

The wisest man I ever knew taught me something I never forgot. And although I never forgot it, I never quite memorized it either. So what I’m left with is the memory of having learned something very wise that I can’t quite remember.

while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.

What is intelligence, anyway It is only a word that people use to name those unknown processes with which our brains solve problems we call hard. But whenever you learn a skill yourself, you're less impressed or mystified when other people do the same. This is why the meaning of 'intelligence' seems so elusive: It describes not some definite thing but only the momentary horizon of our ignorance about how minds might work.

Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.

The close and thoughtful observer more and more learns to recognize his limitations. He realizes that with the steady growth of knowledge more and more new problems keep on emerging.

The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education.

...One of the most important lessons, perhaps, is the fact that SOFTWARE IS HARD. From now on I shall have significantly greater respect for every successful software tool that I encounter. During the past decade I was surprised to learn that the writing of programs for TeX and Metafont proved to be much more difficult than all the other things I had done (like proving theorems or writing books). The creation of good software demand a significiantly higher standard of accuracy than those other things do, and it requires a longer attention span than other intellectual tasks.

A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age.

The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise.