Quotes from Grace Hopper

I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, 'What are you?'

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.

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

If it isn't bolted down, bring it home.

We're flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge.

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

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

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

You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington.

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

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

We've tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question.

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!

I will not take what you need to give me. I will take what you want to give me.

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

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

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

It's always easier to apologize for something you've already done than to get approval for it in advance.

I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.

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

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

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