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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.

— Dennis Ritchie On Unix and Unix-like systems (1999)

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More quotes by Dennis Ritchie

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.

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

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)

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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.