Linus Torvalds

The only way to make a difference is to be yourself.

I'm not a fan of conformity. I'm a fan of individuality.

The only way to truly understand something is to build it.

I'm not a fan of excuses. I'm a fan of results.

The only way to improve is to constantly challenge yourself.

I'm not a fan of stagnation. I'm a fan of progress.

The only way to make an impact is to be passionate about what you do.

I'm not a fan of mediocrity. I'm a fan of excellence.

The only way to truly innovate is to be fearless.

I'm not a fan of closed systems. I'm a fan of open source.

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.

Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's your livelihood. If you can only do your job when you have a simple and unrealistic view of the world, then your job is not a very good job.

I think the mark of a really good developer is that he or she can look at a problem and say, 'I know I can solve this.'

The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh at the absurdity of closed-source software'. Why change it?

Microsoft is not a company that develops software; it's a company that sells monopolies.

One of the reasons Linux is better is that it doesn't try to hide the complexity from you.

I view Linux as something that's not Microsoft - a huge let-down. So I've got the opposite problem to everyone else.

The world doesn't need another operating system.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.