"LISP has been jokingly described as "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts."

"When FORTRAN has been called an infantile disorder, full PL/1, with its growth characteristics of a dangerous tumor, could turn out to be a fatal disease."

"There are very different programming styles. I tend to see them as Mozart versus Beethoven. When Mozart started to write, the composition was finished. He wrote the manuscript and it was 'aus einem Guss' (from one cast). In beautiful handwriting, too. Beethoven was a doubter and a struggler who started writing before he finished the composition and then glued corrections onto the page. In one place he did this nine times. When they peeled them, the last version proved identical to the first one."

"Using PL/1 must be like flying a plane with 7000 buttons, switches and handles to manipulate in the cockpit."

"If you want more effective programmers, you will discover that they should not waste their time debugging, they should not introduce the bugs to start with."

"Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence."

"The effective exploitation of his powers of abstraction must be regarded as one of the most vital activities of a competent programmer."

"The purpose of abstracting is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise."

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."

"APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums."

"FORTRAN, 'the infantile disorder', by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use."

"In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included."

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."

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

"Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer."

"Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability."

"Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians."

"We can found no scientific discipline, nor a hearty profession, on the technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and, mainly, one computer manufacturer."

"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."

"Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well."

"[Though computer science is a fairly new discipline, it is predominantly based on the Cartesian world view. As Edsgar W. Dijkstra has pointed out] A scientific discipline emerges with the - usually rather slow! - discovery of which aspects can be meaningfully 'studied in isolation for the sake of their own consistency."

"How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity —in short: what mathematicians call "elegance"— are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?"

"I think of the company advertising "Thought Processors" or the college pretending that learning BASIC suffices or at least helps, whereas the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery."

"The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim."

"Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better."

"Probably I am very naive, but I also think I prefer to remain so, at least for the time being and perhaps for the rest of my life."

"中醫不過是一種有意的或無意的騙子。"

"中國人的性情是總喜歡調和折中的，譬如你說，這屋子太暗，須在這裏開一個窗，大家一定不允許的。但如果你主張拆掉屋頂他們就來調和，願意開窗了。"

"“蘇聯是無產階級專政的，智識階級就要餓死。”……位有名的記者曾經這樣警告我。是的，這倒恐怕要使我也有些睡不著了。但無產階級專政，不是為了將來的無階級社會麼？只要你不去謀害它，自然成功就早，階級的消滅也就早，那時就誰也不會“餓死”了……然而帝國主義及其奴才們，還來對我們說蘇聯怎麼不好，好像它倒願意蘇聯一下子就變成天堂，人們個個享福。現在竟這樣子，它失望了，不舒服了。——這真是惡鬼的眼淚。……"

"辱駡與恐嚇不是戰鬥。"

"革命是要人生，不是要人死！"

"Savage as a lion, timid as a rabbit, crafty as a fox..."

"When you talk with famous scholars, the best thing is to pretend that occasionally you do not quite understand them. If you understand too little, you will be despised; if you understand too much, you will be disliked; if you just fail occasionally to understand them you will suit each other very well."

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence."

"The so-called "peace" is an interval between wars."

"I used to think that a man was sentenced to death or imprisonment because he was guilty; now I know that he is found guilty because he is disliked."

"Chinese people love compromise. If you say to them, "This room is too dark, we must have a window made," they will all oppose you. But if you say, "Let's take off the roof," they will compromise with you and say "Let's have a window.""

"Rather than worship Confucius and Kuan Kung, one should worship Darwin and Ibsen."

"凡是愚弱的國民，即使體格如何健全，如何茁壯，也只能做毫無意義的示眾的材料和看客，病死多少是不必以為不幸的。"

"We have hereafter only two roads to choose: one is to embrace the ancient literature and die, the other is to forsake the ancient literature and live."

"The literature of former days is like watching a fire from across the water; in present-day literature, the author himself is being scorched by the fire and he is bound to feel it deeply, and when he begins to feel it deeply, he is bound to take part in the social struggle."