Yukihiro Matsumoto Quotes

You will make a difference in the world, but not immediately. Your first obligation is to find something you like doing, because if you like doing it, you'll do it well.

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.

I'm here to change the world, and if I am not, I am probably wasting my time.

I am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer.

Take Lisp, you know its the most beautiful language in the world -- at least up until Haskell came along.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

None of us could be happy for long, doing nothing.

The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person. This is as much a question of having imagination and curiosity as it is of actually making plans.

Accomplishing something provides the only real satisfaction in life.

Work is the only thing that gives substance to life.

I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of WORK, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organised diminution of work.

The key to happiness is not being rich; it's doing something arduous and creating something of value and then being able to reflect on the fruits of your labor.

Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do.

Happiness mainly depends on man's ability to work and the way in which he does it.

Perl programming is an *empirical* science!

Forget being the best of anything. That's the fruit of the action, and you do the work -they say- for the doing, not the fruit. You can never really know how it's gonna turn out in the world but you know if you enjoy doing it. And ideas start flowing and you start getting, you know, excited about stuff. Then you're having a great time in the doing and that's what it's all about. If you don't enjoy the doing, then do something else.

To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.

Work requires effort. Things we love to do feel effortless. Only do the things you love and you'll never have to work again.

I learned one thing; you never do anything for fame or money. You only do things 'cause they're fun or good. If you can combine the two at the same time, you can make a contribution to the world and have a lot of happiness.

[...] beer results in ideas, which results in new code.

I cannot face with comfort the idea of life without work; work and the free play of the imagination are for me the same thing, I take no pleasure in anything else.

I consider myself the luckiest man in the world. I have spent a lifetime doing what I love.

A productive purpose to which you give yourself fully and joyfully is one of the great adventures of life. It is a uniquely human source of happiness.

When you're following your energy and doing what you want all the time, the distinction between work and play dissolves.

FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.