Computers Quotes by Donald Knuth

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

— Donald Knuth

Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been prepared with the help of a computer.

— Donald Knuth

Trees sprout up just about everywhere in computer science.

— Donald Knuth

Programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally for computers to execute.

— Donald Knuth

Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.

— Donald Knuth

Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do.

— Donald Knuth

I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other…

— Donald Knuth

Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand…

— Donald Knuth

People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like.…

— Donald Knuth

My general working style is to write everything first with pencil and paper, sitting beside a big wastebasket. Then I use Emacs…

— Donald Knuth

I can't be as confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to…

— Donald Knuth

In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what…

— Donald Knuth

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things…

— Donald Knuth

These machines have no common sense; they have not yet learned to "think," and they do exactly as they are told, no…

— Donald Knuth

Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because…

— Donald Knuth

To me, it looks more or less like the hardware designers have run out of ideas and that they're trying to pass…

— Donald Knuth

The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but…

— Donald Knuth

Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a…

— Donald Knuth

I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is…

— Donald Knuth

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things…

— Donald Knuth

I remember that mathematicians were telling me in the 1960s that they would recognize computer science as a mature discipline when it…

— Donald Knuth