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FORTRAN's tragic fate has been its wide acceptance, mentally chaining thousands and thousands of programmers to our past mistakes.

— Edsger W. Dijkstra The Humble Programmer (1972)

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Fate

More quotes by Edsger W. Dijkstra

A picture may be worth a thousand words, a formula is worth a thousand pictures.

The teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery.

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!

Dijkstra (1970)

The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.

Dijkstra (1988)

It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.

Dijkstra (2000)

All Edsger W. Dijkstra quotes →

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One country, one constitution, one destiny.

Daniel Webster

We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.

John Lewis

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryan

“Destiny,” said John. “The ghastliest word a man can speak.”

Poul Anderson The Corridors of Time (1965)

Attribution

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