Something out of nothing

Write a paper promising salvation, make it a "structured" something or a "virtual" something, or "abstract", "distributed" or "higher-order" or "applicative" and you can almost be certain of having started a new cult.
-- E.W. Dijkstra, "EWD 709: My hopes of computing science," April 1979.

Either way, you lose

Confusing "love of perfection" with "claim of perfection", people will accuse you of the latter and then blame you for the first.
-- E.W. Dijkstra, "EWD 709: My hopes of computing science," April 1979.

Extraterrestrial intelligent life?

"There is not much sign of it on Earth."
-- Stephen Hawking. "Stephen Hawking prepares for weightless flight," NewScientist.com, 26 April 2007.

Ignorant is bliss (or not)

"It's one thing not to know something, it's another thing altogether to choose not to know."
-- U.S. Representative Christopher Smith in "Jerry Yang on the Hot Seat," BusinessWeek, November 6, 2007.

The not-so-innocuous pencil

"Even a pencil could use a manual, though—how many years does it take to learn how to use it? It's more natural to use one as a weapon!"
-- Don Norman in "Are Cars Too Safe? Are User Manuals Necessary?," BusinessWeek, December 5, 2007.

It's all magic!

"Magic is science insufficiently explained."
-- Eric Schmidt in "Google's CEO on the Power of Clouds," BusinessWeek, December 13, 2007.