"Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems."

Grace Hopper computer science See all quotes by Grace Hopper →

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“I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, "What are you?”

“From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.”

“It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

“In total desperation, I called over to the engineering building, and I said, "Please cut off a nanosecond and send it over to me.”

“There's something you learn in your first boot-camp, or training camp: If they put you down somewhere with nothing to do, go to sleep — you don't know when you'll get any more.”

“You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington.”

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