Edsger Dijkstra Quotes

My mom played tennis for, like, six hours a day and went to college on a tennis scholarship, because that was the way she could go to school. So they instilled in me the idea that you have to work hard for the things you want in life and never complain.

Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.

After graduating college, I was coming out of a routine I'd been in for several years, all the way back to high school. It was a year-round process of constantly having to work and be disciplined, and I was able to understand and connect the dots between all those characteristics - especially hard work and success.

I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man's Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.

Making something simple is very difficult.

The truth is that an intellectual life is available to almost anyone, almost anywhere, if they work hard enough and are given some kind of access point.

I'm not a psychologist, and I don't know how to play a more sophisticated role than the one that I have played for quite a few years, and that is spending a lot of time with these hard-working scientists in the various fields of expertise that relate to the climate crisis, learning as fully as I can the truths they are discovering, asking them to explain it in language that's simple enough for me to understand and then use that language to convey the essence of it, and then letting the chips fall where they may.

All the great things are simple.

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights And you're probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It's just that simple.

A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar; it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure, but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account.

I've learned to keep things simple. Look at your choices, pick the best one, then go to work with all your heart.

Nothing comes easy. I know that people joke all the time and try to figure out, you know, what it is that I do, but I work really hard. I get up every day at 5 a.m. and start my day. I think as long as you work really hard and figure out what you want to do and stay motivated and have a plan and stay committed - just don't be lazy. That's my best advice. It's the most simple advice, but it really worked for me. I think that for some reason, I see people that think things will come easy and it doesn't really come easy.

No education is worth having that does not teach the lesson of concentration on a task, however unattractive. These lessons, if not learnt early, will be learnt, if at all, with pain and grief in later life.

He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack.

Now that things are so simple, there's so much to do.

Sure, it's simple, writing for kids... Just as simple as bringing them up.

I think I generally try to buy the best quality and keep it simple. I don't try to make too many decorations, too many things with it.

Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.

What can I say about my jewelry? It speaks for itself. To me, style is to be simple.

Great men, like nature, use simple language.

Let Girls Learn issue has always been personal for me. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago where most folks, including my parents, didn't have college degrees. But with a lot of hard work - and a lot of financial aid - I had the chance to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School, and that gave me the confidence to pursue my ambitions.

Having little money to spend was a valuable learning experience. My schooling also shaped my work ethic because while other children were listening to the Goons, I was studying, which enabled me to go to Cambridge University.

Lack of ornamentation is a sign of spiritual strength.

I started to notice that simpleness is divine. I think we all start trying to use very complex harmonies and rhythms and all that because of a certain kind of ambition. But I was always trying to create something simple.