A few quotes I've picked up over time from many sources.
Life is optional.
Death is mandatory.
- carved into a Mason Distrct Park table in Annandale, VA around 1990
"Every thing should be made as simple as possible but not simpler"
- Albert Einstein
C is like Jedi C++ : There is no try
- mailto:karbatfordashpresidentdotcom on /. 20000303
you remind me of school on a sunday.. no class.
- unknown
On lyrics (paraphrased):
"When I write a lyric I try for 'forever'. Sometimes you stumble upon
'forever' other times its intentional"
- Montel Jordan interview on "Later" speaking of a talk with Lionel Ritchie
20000621
"My mother said to me, if you become a soldier, you'll be a general, if you
become a monk, you'll end up as the pope. Instead I became a painter and wound
up as Picasso." -- Pablo Picasso
"develop open source behind closed doors"
- aeneas on #livid 20000826 on dvd lawsuits against hackers
"the principle cause of problems is solutions."
- Eric Serveraid
"Procrastination is like masturbation.
It feels so good,
but you're just fucking yourself."
- desk grafitti in McBride Hall on VT campus
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
- CRYPTO-GRAM, October 15, 2000, Bruce Schneier,
Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.
"Sexuality is about reaching your limits and transcending them."
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - "Slaves", Mrs Mora?
"Sometimes you're the bug, sometimes you're the windshield."
- Deadline, "Howl", Pablo, 20001030
"Oh, so that's what an invisible barrier looks like."
- Fidgit, Time Bandits, 1981
"But I hold open source people to higher standards. They are supposed to be the
people who do programming because it's an art-form, not because it's their job."
- Linux Torvalds 20010117 linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org post
"I'm dropping shit like a pegeon!"
- Tupac Shakur & Notorious BIG - Freestyle
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Ghandi
He is right when he says that I need somebody to "keep me honest". I
tend to fly very high and sometimes this is dangerous. Anyway, the net
result of my 'quest to touch the sky' and your 'keeping me with the feet
on the ground' as a whole is pretty powerful, don't you think?
- Stefano Mazzocchi <stefano@apache.org> Thu, 15 Feb 2001
Q: How does a Unix guru have sex?
A: gunzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;fsck;fsck;fsck;umount;sleep
- sig of Arthur Korn <arthur@korn.ch>, Fri, 16 Mar 2001
... rambling with the threat of logic.
Law & Order "Disappeared" Original Airdate: April 22, 1998. 20010425
Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something
specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things
in the world, you're only looking for one of them. When you go looking for
anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the
things in the world, you're sure to find some of them.
- Daryl Zero, Zero Effect, 1998, http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120906
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you
with experience.
- LKML post: Martin Josefsson <gandalf@wlug.westbo.se> Thu, 20 Sep 2001
... this release attempts to be more things to more
people, but due to the law of conservation of cluelessness, this means
more incoherent anger will simply be concentrated among fewer people
-- Debian xfree86 packaging changelog:
Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> Mon, 10 Dec 2001 04:41:36 -0500
If you're willing to dispense with restrictions on the energy in the universe,
then it is actually possible to formalize the cheapest-price problem in a
not-too-unreasonable way that leads to a proof of undecidability by reduction
to the Post correspondance problem :-).
-- http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html
Carl de Marcken of ITA Software http://www.itasoftware.com/
on cheapest-price calculation
"Being single isn't so bad. You don't have to dress up as much. Think of all
the extra time you have. I usually just use it to sleep, because being awake
is too depressing."
- rough quote from King of the Hill, Feb 15th 2002, Valentines day episode
Give a man a match and he will be warm for a while, light him on fire and he
will be warm for the rest of his life.
-- unknown 20020225
Anyone who quotes me in their sig is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell.
-- found in sig of Rusty Russell on LKML post March 1, 2002
-"640 K ought be enough"
Bill G. , 1984
-"The Internet is not a primary goal for PC usage"
Bill G. , 1995
-"Linux has no impact on Microsoft's strategy"
Bill G. , 1999
Eat shit -- billions of flies can't be wrong.
-- Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>
in sig on message to debian-vote@lists.debian.org Wed, 27 Mar 2002
There are 10 kinds of people, those that understand binary and those that don't.
-- Unknown, Apr 15, 2002, rumor of someone's /. sig.
Those of you who think you know everything really annoy those of us who do.
-- May 30, 2002 - sig on post to Python getopt-sig list
Greg Ward <gward@python.net> - http://starship.python.net/~gward/
Only someone who's gone too far can know how far you can go.
-- Paul E. McKenny - June 29, 2002 - OLS 2002 Read-Copy Update presentation
"When Dilbert has a better working environment than you its time to leave"
-- Anonymous
(found in Alan Cox post to lkml 20021002)
"It is remarkable ... how much money you can make shovelling back the tide. In the end you need to get out while the getting is good. Not very honourable, I suppose, but then, there is no honour amoung consultants."
Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
"Pursue the purity of perfection, not the perfection of purity."
MTV cartoon
"`... is it a virus, a drug, or a religon?"` `What's the difference?`"
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash
"A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk I have a workstation..."
-- sig of Per Hansson 20030119
"I don't like to read. I like to spend my time doing things people write books about."
-- Monster Garage "PT Cruiser/Tree Mulcher" episode
"I leave when the pub closes."
-- Winston Chruchill
"My day was supposed to end 20 minutes ago." "Oh, forgive me. I'm sure you have a nice bowel movement planned and you want to get to it to give your day some meaning."
-- The Practice, "Loser's Keepers" 1999
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Martin Fowler
"There is a certain charm to seeing someone happily advocate a
triangular wheel because it has one less bump per revolution than a
square wheel does."
-- Chuck Swiger (found on Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! 2003-06-02)
"In any project that is multi-threaded, most bugs will come from threading
issues. This is regardless of programming language -- it's a deep, as yet
ununderstood property of threads."
-- Guido van Rossum
"Whether or not I agree with you, you have made me think. That's worth
the price of my Internet connection this month."
-- Tim Roberts (20030731)
As is so often the case in programming, doing less work requires more code.
--- http://www.namesys.com/v4/reiser4_the_atomic_fs.html
"What street are you on?"
"I'm on 1st and 1st. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe?!"
-- Kramer, Seinfeld, "The Maid" 1998
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
-- Robert Heinlein
A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist...
-- Knight Rider
"Homer no function beer well without."
-- Homer Simpson - "The Joy of Sect" 1998
"This is solid concentrated fluff."
-- me, 2004-02-24
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
-- Donald E. Knuth
I'm reminded of the story of someone suggesting at a C++ conference that people
should all be allowed to introduce new features, but they should have to donate
a kidney with each one - so they'd think very hard before suggesting one, and
would be physically incapable of suggesting more than two (the next speaker was
Strousup introducing exceptions and templates...).
-- Jon Hanna http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2004Feb/0077.html
"You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do."
-- Henry Ford
"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," observed Rich Cook, a programmer. "So far the universe is winning."
"Good health" is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.
"MediaWiki 1.3 will be released at some time in the future. When in the future
we can't say. However, we are absolutely certain it won't be released in the
past, unless you are reading this in the future, in which case it depends on
how far in the future you are reading it."
-- http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_roadmap
"If we were an alien invasion team sent to take over earth, we'd first index all the human knowledge with a ``search engine'' then we'd eventually eat them."
-- Phillip Torrone on Google Globe query visualization http://www.engadget.com/entry/5326779567833101/
It doesn't get any easier, you just go faster.
--Greg LeMond
You know that old saying about giving a man a fish? Well, give a man
a bike trail, and he'll be able to ride as far as the trail goes, but
teach a man how to ride on the road, and he'll be able to go anywhere.
-- Nancy Taylor (nm_taylor@yahoo.com) on bike trails vs roads
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&safe=off&selm=bbd2976.0308310729.695988a5%40posting.google.com
"But in an awesome display of his mastery over the laws of space and time,
Lance Armstrong actually finishes his time trial BEFORE he started it, and
dedicates his stage win to Stephen Hawking"
-- http://www.velonews.com/ during live updates of the final time trial stage of the 2004 Tour de France
"The greatest moment of a swimming race is not when one swimmer begins to pull ahead of the pack, or when one touches the wall in victory.
The greatest moment takes place before the starting pistol fires -- the moment when no nation is greater or smaller, or stronger or weaker, than any other.
For me, that is the Olympic Moment."
-- Kofi Annan
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.
-- Robert Benchley (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Benchley)
"If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke http://www.marcusbrigstocke.com/pacman.asp (also incorrectly attributed to Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, 1989)
"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since
you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as
they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you
have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you
gain by riding a bicycle."
-- Ernest Hemingway
Growing older is mandatory.
Growing up is optional.
Laughing at yourself is theraputic.
- (unknown net sig)
"It is simple to make things. It is hard to make things simple."
-- Wichert Akkerman .
"Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from
malice." -- Alex Martelli
(found on Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! Thu, 02 Dec 2004 01:34:02 +0000)
"I get very annoyed when I hear arguments - usually from those who have been educated beyond their intelligence - about the virtues of keeping happy, backwards people in ignorance."
-- Sir Arthur C. Clarke on censorship and information starvation, http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/74591/1 2004-12-05
Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves...
-- Alan Kay (found on http://patricklogan.blogspot.com/2005/03/alan-kay-again-on-software-engineering.html)
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
- William Morris
(found on http://www.dekorte.com/blog/blog.cgi?do=item&id=1117)
I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting.
But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.
- Douglas Adams
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you;
But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
- Don Marquis
There is nothing permanent except change.
- Heraclitus of Ephesus (ca. 525-475 B.C.)
A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows
up that is familiar with it.
- Max Plank (1858-1947)
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
- Winston Churchill, (1874-1965)
"We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to."
- W. Sommerset Maugham
"Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do."
- Robert Heinlein
Top 10 reasons why I procrastinate:
1.
- anonymous t-shirt
- "We create wealth for all. Our work, by metrics for conventional software creation, is valued in the billions of dollars. For our reward we ask only that you use our software. If you find it effective, perhaps you will join us in augmenting it."
- Bruce Parens - 2005-11-18
"There are good people with bad papers; and bad people with good papers."
- Bertold Brecht
"Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build."
- Fred Brooks
"It's hard to say exactly what constitutes research in the computer
world, but as a first approximation, it's software that doesn't have
users."
- Paul Graham
"With or without religion, 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
Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
- Don Hirschbergm in a letter to Ann Landers
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
- James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
- Oscar Wilde
I Don't Know
Wavy Gravy once asked a Zen Roshi, "What happens after death?"
The Roshi replied, "I don't know."
Wavy protested, "But you're a Zen Master!"
"Yes," the Roshi admitted, "but I'm not a dead Zen Master."
- http://robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-dont-know.html
"Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something."
- Thomas Alva Edison
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
- Arthur C. Clarke
We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
- Frank Tibolt
"Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction."
- Pablo Picasso
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
- H.P. Lovecraft
Removed code is debugged code.
- http://www.suckless.org/wiki/about
Self-referential pizza formula:
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
- Andy_R (114137) (via)
Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.
- unknown
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating...
...and you finish off as an orgasm."
- George Carlin
Life is a roller coaster of ups and downs. The downs can be scary but the more speed you can build up going down the higher you'll go back up.
- unknown
Freedom is like health: you will probably only see it's real value and scope, when you have lost it already.
- Holger Levsen (http://layer-acht.org/blog/debian/#1-108)
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
- Lao Tzu
"The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late."
- Seymour Cray
Alan: I've been pouring vodka in your drink.
Tara: Alan!
Alan: I was hoping it would lead to intercourse. In times of stress I find
solace in warm dark places.
-- The Practice "War of the Roses" 2004
Some great Epigrams on Programming from Alan J. Perlis.(local copy)
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
-Jimi Hendrix"
directory: []
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Copyright © 2003 David I. Lehn