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Last updated: February 7, 2026

A collection of quotes and passages that have inspired me, challenged my thinking, or simply resonated with me.

Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.

— Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

— Oscar Wilde

The programmer has to be able to think in terms of conceptual hierarchies that are much deeper than a single mind ever needed to face before.

— Edsger Dijkstra, 1988

Things that are impossible just take longer than the things that are possible.

Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

We are each of us like our little blue planet, hung in black space, upheld by nothing but our mutual reassurances, our loving lies.

— John Updike, Rabbit at Rest

The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

— William Shakespeare

Every great developer you know got there by solving problems they were unqualified to solve until they actually did it.

— Patrick McKenzie

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.

— Martin Golding

Heroes who make enormous sacrifices for others are "inspiring," but when it comes to motivating real-world behavior, research shows that the best way to get people to do something good is to tell them that their neighbors are already doing it.

— Joshua Greene, Moral Tribes

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

— Steve Wozniak

The main point is that the only person who knows what a successful life looks like for you, is you.

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.

— Marcus Aurelius

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

— Aristotle

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

— Franz Kafka

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

— Franz Kafka

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

— Franz Kafka

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

— Franz Kafka

It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.

— Albert Einstein

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

— Confucius

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

— Aristotle

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

— Confucius