A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use. If the tool is a programming language this influence is, whether we like it or not, an influence on our thinking habits.... A programming language is a tool that has profound influence on our thinking habits.

In the software business there are many enterprises for which it is not clear that science can help them; that science should try is not clear either.

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.

If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent."

The prisoner falls in love with his chains.

Computer science has as much to do with computers as astronomy has to do with telescopes.

It used to be the program's purpose to instruct our computers; it became the computer's purpose to execute our programs.