A few curated favorite epigrams from Alan Perlis.

"It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one."

"A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant."

"Get into a rut early: Do the same processes the same way. Accumulate idioms. Standardize."

"If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some."

"Optimization hinders evolution."

"One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely."

"Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy."

"One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means."

"The proof of a system's value is its existence."

"You can't communicate complexity, only an awareness of it."

"Programming is an unnatural act."