"We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses."

Alan Perlis Science See all quotes by Alan Perlis →

React to this quote

More by Alan Perlis

“64: Often it is means that justify ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.”

“8: A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.”

“39: A picture is worth 10K words - but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.”

“16: Every program has two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.”

“Both knowledge and wisdom extend man's reach. Knowledge led to computers, wisdom to chopsticks.”

“57: It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Demonstrating is therefore only the means through which I strip my thought of the form of “mine-ness” so that the other person may recognize it as his own."

— Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach

Philosophy1804–1872

#mind

"I think that if you use long lines, they become – what could they be? The only thing they could be is either highways or architecture or bridges."

— Franz Kline

Music1910–1962

#mind

"As soon as one returns to Doubt , undertaking anything at all seems not so much useless as extravagant. Doubt works deep within you like a disease, or even more effectively, like a faith."

— Emil Cioran

Philosophy1911–1995

#hope