Interview in Hackers — Wizards of the Electronic Age (1985)
1980s
Context: What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done."
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869) French literary critic
Renouveler les choses connues, vulgariser les choses neuves: un bon programme pour un critique.
Causeries du lundi, vol. 11 (1856; Paris: Garnier, 1868) p. 512; Philo M. Buck, Jr. Literary Criticism (New York: Harper, 1930) p. 398
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor
“Excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project
How I do my computing (2006) http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html <br class="br">2000s
Doug McIlroy (1932) American computer scientist, mathematician, engineer, and programmer
Doug McIlroy (2003). The Art of Unix Programming: The Elements of Operating-System Style http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch03s01.html
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Life of Alexander
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon
Quoted by Plutarch in Life of Alexander http://books.google.com/books?id=vWIOAAAAYAAJ&q=%22for+my+part+I+assure+you+I+had+rather+excel+others+in+the+knowledge+of+what+is+excellent+than+in+the+extent+of+my+power+and+dominion%22&pg=PA167#v=onepage from Plutarch's Lives as translated by John Dryden (1683)
Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York
Floor speech in the Senate https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4689088/schumer-visa-program (24 May 2006) celebrating the diversity visa program, as reported and quoted in "Schumer on Diversity Visa: 'This is an Excellent Program'" http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/11/01/schumer-champions-diversity-visa-excellent-program/ by Neil Munro, Breitbart.com (1 November 2017)
“To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.”
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
Source: The Art of War, Chapter IV · Disposition of the Army
Jeff Sessions (1946) Former United States Attorney General
Sessions welcomes restoration of asset forfeiture: "I love that program" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sessions-welcomes-expansion-of-asset-forfeiture-i-love-that-program/, September 1 2017
