Favourite Quotes
General
Don't try to be a great man, just be a man. And let history make its own judgements.
-- Zefram Cochrane, Star Trek creator of the first warp engine (2073)
The highest result of education is tolerance.
-- Helen Keller, author and lecturer (27 Jun 1880-1968)
Buying carbon credits is a bit like a serial killer paying someone else to have kids to make his activity cost neutral.
-- The BOFH
If you don’t have time to do it right,
when will you have time to do it over?
-- John Wooden
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-- Aristotle
Truth fears no questions.
-- unknown
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
-- John Cage, composer (5 Sep 1912-1992)
Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine.
-- Tim Minchin, "Storm"
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
-- Often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but disputed. Around since 1948.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska (1919)
Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.
-- Pablo Picasso (paraphrased?)
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.
-- Bertrand Russell (paraphrased?)
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
-- Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
-- Mark Twain
If you're going to be passionate about something, be passionate about learning. If you're going to fight something, fight for those in need. If you're going to question something, question authority. If you're going to lose something, lose your inhibitions. If you're going to gain something, gain respect and confidence. And if you're going to hate something, hate the false idea that you are not capable of your dreams.
-- Daniel Golston
Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.
-- Psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy as quoted by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock (1970), ch. 18.
Force plays a much larger part in the government of the world than it did before 1914, and what is especially alarming, force tends increasingly to fall into the hands of those who are enemies of civilization. The danger is profound and terrible; it cannot be waved aside with easy optimism.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points. This was not always the case.
-- "The Triumph of Stupidity" (1933-05-10) in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-17866-5), p. 28
It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
-- "The Descent of Man" (1871), Charles Darwin, Introduction, p. 4.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
-- Albert Einstein
Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson
Some people have a mental horizon of radius zero, and call it their point of view.
-- David Hilbert
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.
-- Captain Kirk, "Shore Leave"
When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
-- Mark Twain
Is this *idiocy*? Or something so brilliant that it just *looks* stupid?
-- Gary Kasparov
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
-- Alan J. Perlis
People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we don't.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
A sense of humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.
-- Dave Barry
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
-- Douglas Adams
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise it's theirs and yours.
SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a causal relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory behavior forms." If you can keep this up for 50 or 60 pages, you will get a large government grant.
If I were a blue spider, I would certainly ride on a train all the way from
Avallon to Paris, and I would set up my house on the nose of a chocolate
penguin. It's just a matter of common sense."
--James Wright, "Against Surrealism"
We now return our souls to the creator,
As we stand on the edge of eternal darkness.
Let our chant fill the void,
In order that others may know.
In the land of the night,
The ship of the sun is drawn by the grateful dead.
--Egyptian Book of the Dead
It is better wither to be silent,
or to say things of more value than silence.
Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word;
and do not say a little in many words,
but a great deal in a few.
-- Pythagoras
"Always ... always remember: Less is less. More is more. More is
better. And twice as much is good too. Not enough is bad. And too
much is never enough except when it's just about right."
-- The Tick
UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist.
"In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams
build their nest with fragments dropped
from day's caravan."
-- Rabindranath Tagore
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
make it shorter.
-- Blaise Pascal
WARNING: Suffering attention deficit disorder and I'm not afraid to
spread it. Now stand back or I'll.. mmm cheesecake
-- Homer Simpson
Support mental health or I'll kill you.
"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific".
-- Steven Wright
Reality is what, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
-- Philip K. Dick
Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.
-- Lily Tomlin
Failure is not an option. It is a privilege reserved for those who try.
Failure? I never encountered it. All I ever met were temporary setbacks.
-- Dottie Walters
Success is the mark on the brow of the man who has aimed too low
Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn
to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.
-- Mary Ellen Kelly
If I had eight hours to chop down a
tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe.
-- Abraham Lincoln
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
-- George Wald
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what
they conceal is vital.
-- Aaron Levenstein
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot
lose."
-- Jim Elliot
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
virginity could be a virtue.
-- Voltaire
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed
of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that
is the first law of nature.
-- Voltaire
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
But, in practice, there is.
-- Yogi Berra
I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check.
-- M.C. Escher (1898-1972)
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
-- T.S. Elliot
My father (a lawyer) told me that company culture is driven from the
top -- if it's the people who make the product, you're good; sell the
product, you're OK. If the accountants take over, look for another job,
and if the lawyers take over, run as fast as you can the other way.
-- Alden Hart
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
-- John F. Kennedy
Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past - let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
-- John F. Kennedy
I used to be indecisive but now I am not quite sure.
-- Tommy Cooper
For sure, you have to be lost to find a place that can't be found, elseways everyone would know where it was.
-- Captain Barbossa
To attain knowledge, add things every day.
To attain wisdom, remove things every day.
-- Laozi (Lao Tse)
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
-- Laozi (Lao Tse)
Science
… when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When
people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth
is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of
them put together.
-- Isaac Asimov, "The Relativity of Wrong" (1988)
[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. …The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.
-- Albert Einstein
… It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.
-- Richard Feynman
We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
-- Carl Sagan
In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.
-- Richard Feynman
What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and sceptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
-- Carl Sagan
Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
-- Christopher Hitchens
Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.
-- Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
Politics
Remember, the Republican plan: "Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly."
-- Alan Grayson, 2009
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
-- James Waterman Wise
The first casualty, when war comes, is truth.
-- Hiram Johnson (1866-1945)
Latin
- Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Who watches the watchmen?
- Ubi dubium ibi libertas
- Where there is doubt there is freedom.
- Ita erat quando hic adveni
- It was that way when I got here.
- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
- Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
Religion
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
-- James Madison
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-- Often attributed to Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC), but disputed
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible
gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-- Stephen F. Roberts
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all
considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally
false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.
-- Edward Gibbon, 1776
Organised Religion (OR g@ nizd re LIJ @n) n. A "morally aligned" elite consisting of people who want to change everyone else's world to be like their own. See "Wrong Answer, The".
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would
indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment
and hope of reward after death.
-- Albert Einstein
As long as you pray to God and ask him for some benefit, you are not a religious man.
-- Albert Einstein
Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us. We cannot stand aside and let God do it.
-- Albert Einstein
To assume the existence of an unperceivable being ... does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world.
-- Albert Einstein
The difference between a cult and an established religion is sometimes about one generation.
-- Scott McLemee
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-- Steven Weinberg
The concept of God is insulting and degrading to man -- it implies that
the highest possible is not to be reached by man, that he is an inferior
being who can only worship an ideal he will never achieve.
-- Ayn Rand
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of
morality by religion.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
We are all without god – some of us just happen to be aware of it.
-- Monica Salcedo
Yes, I suppose it's odd that atheists sometimes say Jesus and Oh My God. But odder than the religious saying "let's be reasonable"?
-- Hugh Laurie, via Twitter, 2014-09-10
It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.
-- Ricky Gervais
»Glaube« heißt Nicht-wissen-wollen - "Faith" means not wanting to know.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
-- Mark Twain
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Computers
The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can be economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.
-- Donald Knuth
Because user errors often produce unpredictable results, the user should try to avoid them.
--IBM MVS/XA System Programming Library
...and then we wrote scripts to write the configs for us, and using
these scripts, we made mistakes in a faster, more automated manner.
-- 'A Gentle Introduction to Cricket', on MRTG configuration
Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
Anything that can be done in O(N) can be done in O(N^2).
-- Ralf Schuettau (after looking at a particular piece of code)
101 reasons why you can't find your Sysadmin:
68: It's 9AM. He/She is not working that late.
-- Koos van den Hout
Reason #173 to fear technology... o o o o o <o <o> o> o .|. \|. \|/ // X \ | <| <|> /\ >\ /< >\ /< >\ /< >\ /< Mr. Asciihead learns the Macarena.
"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."
-- Rich Cook
"Well you know, C isn't that hard, void (*(*f[])())() for instance defines f as an array of unspecified size, of pointers to functions that return pointers to functions that return void... I think".
"The 80xxx series of microprocessors is clear evidence that INTEL
isn't doing in-house drug testing."
-- (Usenet, 1988)
- Progress (n.)
- The process through which Usenet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals.
-- obs@burnout.demon.co.uk (obscurity)
- BSD
- "do what you like with our code how you like,
- just give us some credit since you used our stuff"
- GPL
- "I am RMS of FSF, your patches and code enhancements
- will be assimilated into this copylefted source.
- Resistence is futile..."
- Microsoft
- "Where do you want to go today?"
- Linux
- "Where do you want to be tomorrow?"
- BSD
- "Are you guys coming, or what?"
Microsoft
Customer: "I'm running Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 4."
Tech Support: "Y-e-e-e-e-s........"
Customer: "My Computer isn't working now."
Tech Support: "Yes, you just said that."
Friends don't let friends use Microsoft.
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
Microsoft:
"Just click on the START button and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete!"
You have moved the mouse.
Windows NT must be restarted for the changes to take effect.
Press "OK" to reboot.
Microshaft: Where do you want to crash today?
Microsoft Windows: It just keeps getting beta and beta.
"NT is mute because it is fundamentally broken, period. That any hardware works on that OS is amazing."
-- Jacob Hawley, Sr. Manager, Custom Engineering, Creative Labs
windows 95: n. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit
patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit
microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of
competition.
-- Rev. Pee Kitty
My other computer is your Windows box.
In a world without walls or fences, what use do we have for windows or gates?
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.
-- Douglas Adams, on Windows '95
Microsoft: "Where do you want to go today?"
Unix: "What do you need to get done today?"
Irix: "Uhh... what day is it today?"
Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian cat away from being one
of the bad guys in a James Bond movie.
-- Dennis Miller
Macintosh
One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with in the colours of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn't dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy.
-- Gassee - Apple Logo
The Box said Win '95 or better - So I used a Macintosh!
-- Harold Herbert Tessman
"Macintosh - We may not have done everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end."
-- Douglas Adams
UNIX
Mastery of UNIX, like mastery of language, offers real freedom. The price of freedom is always dear, but there's no substitute. Personally, I'd rather pay for my freedom than live in a bitmapped, pop-up-happy dungeon like NT.
-- Thomas Scoville
"Besides, who the hell would use an MS keyboard on an SGI machine, they'd probably take it back if they saw you doing that."
-- dustin@spy.net
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly.
It just happens to be selective about who it makes friends with.
-- Kyle Hearn <kyle@intex.net>
The UNIX Guru's View of Sex: # unzip ; strip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; umount ; sleep
earth:~# shutdown --apocalypse 5 `/bin/cat ~/apocalype.msg` Broadcast message from god (console) Wed May 16 13:45:22 2000... Earth is shutting down in 5 minutes for a system upgrade. All users please log out or transfer to heaven.god.net or hell.god.net. Thank you.
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
-- Hogfather, Terry Pratchett.
