Grace Hopper Quotes

The most damaging phrase in the language is: 'It's always been done that way.'

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.

A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

The only phrase I've ever disliked is, 'Why, we've always done it that way.' I always tell young people, 'Go ahead and do it. You can always apologize later.'

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

No computer is ever going to ask a new, reasonable question. It takes trained people to do that.

You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership.

Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down. Respect for one's superiors; care for one's crew.

I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.

I am now going to make you a gift that will stay with you the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, every time you say, "We've always done it that way," my ghost will appear and haunt you for twenty-four hours.

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologise 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.

Manage things. Lead people.

If you do something once, people will call it an accident. If you do it twice, they call it a coincidence. But do it a third time and you've just proven a natural law!

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's simply larger than it needs to be. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission

Developing a compiler was a logical move; but in matters like this, you don't run against logic - you run against people who can't change their minds.

I'm totally against women in combat, because we live in a culture and a society that imposes on every man the concept of women and children first...If you had a man and a woman trying to go through some dangerous woods, the man's instinct would be to protect the woman. Therefore you weaken the man.

If one ox could not do the job they did not try to grow a bigger ox, but used two oxen. When we need greater computer power, the answer is not to get a bigger computer, but . . .to build systems of computers and operate them in parallel.

Some day, on the corporate balance sheet, there will be an entry which reads, "Information"; for in most cases, the information is more valuable than the hardware which processes it.

From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.

It is easier to apologize than to get permission.

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.

If you want my ghost just say ' We've always done it that way.' and i will haunt you for 24 hours.