Misunderstanding the Knuth premature optimization quote

(...) "premature emphasis on efficiency is a big mistake which may well be the source of most programming complexity and grief."

Note: not "optimization" but "premature emphasis on efficiency" and "may be the source of complexity and grief" not "root of all evil."

Who invented "root of all evil" then?

Edit: here it is, also Knuth:

" There is no doubt that the grail of efficiency leads to abuse. Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance a considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3 %. A good programmer will not be lulled into complacency by such reasoning, he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code; but only after that code has been identified."

OK, there it is, but nicely guarded in a long sentence and not made to be used as some mantra!

Additionally, I agree with Joe Duffy:

"It's an all-too-common occurrence. I'll give code review feedback, asking "Why didn't you take approach B? It seems to be just as clear, and yet obviously has superior performance." Again, this is in a circumstance where I believe the difference matters, given the order of magnitude that matters for the code in question. And I'll get a response, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." At which point I want to smack this certain someone upside the head (...)"

You may not be one of the "many programmers" but I certainly have worked with enough of them over the years to know just how pervasive they tend to be.