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Quotes by Donald Knuth

A list is only as strong as its weakest link.
– Donald Knuth
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
– Donald Knuth
Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been sorted with the help of a computer.
– Donald Knuth
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
– Donald Knuth
I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people from making use of one's contributions to computer science.
– Donald Knuth
I thought when I went to college I would be a music major. I played saxophone, but then the tuba player got into an accident and I became a tuba player. I arranged a piece for band that combined all kinds of themes off TV shows - - Dragnet, Howdy Doody Time, and Bryl Cream. I knew nothing about copyright law.
– Donald Knuth
If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things; it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things; it will improve your practice.
– Donald Knuth
If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.
– Donald Knuth
In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what really advances the field.
– Donald Knuth
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.
– Donald Knuth
My feeling is that when we prepare a program, the experience can be just like composing poetry or music; as Andrei Ershov has said, programming can give us both intellectual and emotional satisfaction, because it is a real achievement to master complexity and to establish a system of consistent rules.
– Donald Knuth
Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.
– Donald Knuth
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
– Donald Knuth
The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.
– Donald Knuth
The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.
– Donald Knuth
The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
– Donald Knuth
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.
– Donald Knuth
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 eachother, like a wall of mini stones.
– Donald Knuth
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.
– Donald Knuth
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
– Donald Knuth