108 Quotes by Donald Knuth

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

I currently use Ubuntu Linux, on a standalone laptop - it has no Internet connection. I occasionally carry flash memory drives between this machine and the Macs that I use for network surfing and graphics; but I trust my family jewels only to Linux.

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.

Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.

A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.

My general working style is to write everything first with pencil and paper, sitting beside a big wastebasket. Then I use Emacs to enter the text into my machine.

God is a challenge because there is no proof of his existence and therefore the search must continue.

The most important thing in the kitchen is the waste paper basket and it needs to be centrally located.