Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Edsger W. Dijkstra

Quote by Edsger W. Dijkstra

“Lisp has jokingly been called “the most intelligent way to misuse a computer”. I think that description is 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.”

Quote by Edsger W. Dijkstra

Author

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Edsger W. Dijkstra. more

You May Also Like

“If you understand McCarthy's eval, you understand more than just a stage in the history of languages. These ideas are still the semantic core of Lisp today. So studying McCarthy's original paper shows us, in a sense, what Lisp really is. It's not something that McCarthy designed so much as something he discovered. It's not intrinsically a language for AI or for rapid prototyping, or any other task at that level. It's what you get (or one thing you get) when you try to axiomatize computation.”

“To me death is a confirmation of life, something always connected and eternal. It is not dark, not the end, not a disaster - it is magnificent, and exhilarating; it is your soul, and your love, concentrated into their purest forms. Dying, you become connected to the collective energy everywhere all at once, which is itself a kind of divinity. And it is a fierce teacher. Dying I learned the futility and temporary nature of hatred, ranged as it is against the permanence of love. Though fear and hatred are the flashiest and sometimes the most powerful human emotions, they are merely the hare facing off against the tortoise of love. Love slowly, quietly, and patiently waits for hate to simply burn out. It requires so much more energy to hate than to love, and love has all the time in the world. The only way love wins is across a span of time - it's not an instant fix to anything, but it always wins.”