Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist
are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
1980s
Source: EWD648.
“It is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties and as we have seen, creating mistakes. My definition of elegance is the achievement of a given functionality with a minimum of mechanism and a maximum of clarity.”
Source: On Building Systems That Will Fail (1991), p. 80
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Fernando J. Corbató11
American computer scientist 1926–2019Related quotes
“Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 588.
“Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine.”
Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) Italian Dominican friar and preacher
Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 481
“The elegant simplicity of the three per cents.”
William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell (1745–1836) British politician
As quoted in Lives of the Lord Chancellors (1845) by John Campbell, Vol. x. Chap. 212; this precedes the use by Benjamin Disraeli of "The sweet simplicity of the three per cents", in Endymion (1880).
“Minimum information given with maximum politeness.”
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy
Instructions to press secretary Pamela Turnure; Quoted in A Hero for Our Time (1983) by Ralph G Martin; sometimes rendered : "I want minimum information given with maximum politeness."
“To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.”
Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal
The Thief's Journal (1949)