Write a paper promising salvation, make it a "structured" something or a "virtual" something, or "abstract," "distributed" or "higher-order" or "applicative" and you can almost be certain of having started a new cult.

A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.

We are all shaped by the tools we use, in particular: the formalisms we use shape our thinking habits, for better or for worse, and that means that we have to be very careful in the choice of what we learn and teach, for unlearning is not really possible.

If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

Teaching to unsuspecting youngsters the effective use of formal methods is one of the joys of life because it is so extremely rewarding.

Brainpower is by far our scarcest resource.

Thanks to the greatly improved possibility of communication, we overrate its importance. Even stronger, we underrate the importance of isolation.