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[C has] the power of assembly language and the convenience of … assembly language.

— Dennis Ritchie

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Quoted in Cade Metz, "Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On", Wired, 13 October 2011.
Source quality: Secondhand citation Quoted from another book or article rather than from the original.

More by Dennis Ritchie

I think the Linux phenomenon is quite delightful, because it draws so strongly on the basis that Unix provided. Linux seems to be the among the healthiest of the direct Unix derivatives, though there are also the various BSD systems as well as the more official offerings from the workstation and mainframe manufacturers.

On Unix and Unix-like systems (1999)

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C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.

UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity.

Life's a bitch and then your feet wear down.

Another danger is that commercial pressures of one sort or another will divert the attention of the best thinkers from real innovation to exploitation of the current fad, from prospecting to mining a known lode.

Reflections on Software Research (1984)

Usenet is a strange place.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Dennis Ritchie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.