Richard Hamming

Blaming the users will not undo the errors!

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

Most people want the definition of thinking to be such that they can think, but stones, trees, and such things cannot think... most of us cannot think—and we do not like that conclusion!

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

Science has traditionally appealed to experimental evidence and not idle words, and so far science seems to have been more effective than philosophy in improving our way of life.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

You must struggle with your own beliefs if you are to make any progress in understanding the possibilities and limitations of computers in the intellectual area.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

Often the legal problems of new applications are the main difficulty, not the engineering!

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

Working calmly will let you elaborate and extend things, but breakthroughs generally come only after great frustration and emotional involvement. The calm, cool, uninvolved researcher seldom makes really great new steps.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

It pays to know more than just what is needed at the moment!

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

Life presents you with many, many opportunities for doing great things (define them as you will) and the prepared person usually hits one or more successes, and the unprepared person will miss almost every time.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

It is not common to recognize greatness when it happens under one's nose.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

What it takes to be great in one age is not what is required in the next one. Thus you, in preparing yourself for future greatness, have to think of the nature of the future you will live in.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

The only [guide] you have besides history is the constant use of your own imagination.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)

A random walk of random decisions will not get you anywhere near as far as those taken with your own vision of what your future should be.

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
  • (Stripe Press, 2020)