Grace Hopper Quotes

It is better to beg forgiveness, than ask permission.

It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

We're flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. We've tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question.

I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. ... they carefully told me, computers could only do arithmetic; they could not do programs.

The most dangerous phrase in the language is 'We've always done it this way!'".

To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge.

I've received many honors and I'm grateful for them; but I've already received the highest award I'll ever receive, and that has been the privilege and honor of serving very proudly in the United States Navy.

There's something you learn in your first boot-camp, or training camp: If they put you down somewhere with nothing to do, go to sleep — you don't know when you'll get any more.

Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, "We've always done it this way." I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.

The most dangerous phrase in the language is we've always done

Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.

[The Computer] was the first machine man built that assisted the power of his brain instead of the strength of his arm.

Wouldn’t it be dull to do things that ended?

"Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down."

(CBS 60 Minutes interview, March 6, 1983)

This saying has been in print already 1957, in Gerald Kershs "Fowler's End", p. 23.