“You ought to try to make significant contributions to humanity rather than just get along through life comfortably… the life of trying to achieve excellence in some area is in itself a worthy goal… A life without a struggle on your part to make yourself excellent is hardly a life worth living. …a life without such a goal… is merely existing…”

—  Richard Hamming

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)

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Richard Hamming90
American mathematician and information theorist 1915–1998

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