These are some of my favorite quotes. While many of them were intended for different things, if interpreted in the context of research and graduate studies, I think they capture the essence of high-quality research.
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
John Tukey (co-inventor of the FFT algorithm)
It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S. Truman
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Donald Knuth (inventor of LaTeX; author of The Art of Computer Programming)
You can’t think yourself out of a writing block;
John Rogers (screen writer, including Transformers)
you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou
While there is goal and meaning of our travels,
Karin Boye (Swedish poet, loosely translated)
it’s the journey that makes them all worth it.