1 Some of Bdale's Favorite Quotations
2 ===================================
4 These are things I've tripped over in my life,
5 that I've chosen to pick up and carry with me...
11 "The American story is, really, just enough of us did just enough of the
12 right thing at the right moment to push us forward."
13 <br> -- Jon Meacham</p>
16 "In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We
17 spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If
18 during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and really communicate
19 with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate."
20 <br> -- Gene Roddenberry</p>
23 "Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan not because he hits all the right notes...
24 but because he hits all the right emotions."
28 "Taste your words before you spit them out."
32 "That which hinders your task is your task."
35 "Energy without focus is chaos."
36 <br>-- Ne-Yo, while judging on World of Dance
39 "Find the audience, be excellent, and you will be fine."
43 "Fast is relative to what you're driving."
47 "I think, however, that there isn't any solution to this problem of education
48 other than to realize that the best teaching can be done only when there is
49 a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher---a
50 situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things,
51 and talks about the things. It's impossible to learn very much by simply
52 sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned."
53 <br>-- Richard Feynman, in his preface to the printed Lectures on Physics
56 "If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed
57 on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some
58 other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science
59 were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure
64 "A pessimist sees a dark tunnel. An optimist sees light at the end of the
65 tunnel. A realist sees a train coming. The train's engineer sees three
66 idiots standing on the track..."
70 "For every vision, there is an equal and opposite revision."
71 <br>-- "Thal's Law", which I first heard quoted by Lyle Johnson
74 "Any problem on earth can be solved with the careful application of high
75 explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off."
76 <br>-- from the movie Valkyrie
79 "I have the luxury of waiting on the sidelines to see how the contest
80 comes out. But <em>someone</em> has to make choices, take risks and
81 commit resources, or nothing new will ever be created."
82 <br>-- Brian Hayes, writing about "The Memristor" in American Scientist
85 "Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence."
89 "Have more than you show, speak less than you know."
90 <br>-- William Shakespeare
93 "Kids are more nimble than wise..."
94 <br>-- Nancy Gibbs, in a Time opinion piece
97 "I just want you to be motivated by the magnitude of the opportunity."
98 <br>-- Mark Hurd, in an HP internal meeting
101 "Love is an activity, not a feeling.
102 True love is the disciplined generosity we require of ourselves
103 for the sake of another when we would rather be selfish."
104 <br>-- the character Misha, in Stephen L. Carter's The Emperor of Ocean Park
107 "Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise,
108 risking more than others think is safe,
109 dreaming more than others think is practical,
110 and expecting more than others think is possible."
114 "If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with
115 a mosquito in the room."
119 "Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed."
120 <br>-- Michael Pritchard
123 "What has violence ever accomplished?
124 What has it ever created?
125 No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet...
126 What we need is not division; what we need is not hatred,
127 but love and compassion toward one another and a feeling of
128 justice toward those who suffer within our community, whatever
129 their color or faith.
130 Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years
131 ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life
133 <br>-- Robert F. Kennedy
136 "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
141 "I try to say what I think I mean."
142 <br>-- Marilyn Hacker, in the poem Living in the Moment</p>
145 "Super-geeks are cool."
146 <br>-- Elizabeth Garbee, 24 October 2005
149 "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision that something else is
150 more important than fear."
151 <br>-- Ambrose Redmoon</p>
154 "Let me just say that, if you ever have the choice of putting your words in
155 powerpoint or having them carved into 30-foot high marble, I'd say go for
157 <br>-- <a href="http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/making.html">Peter Norvig</a>
160 "My hands are clean, but not because I wasn't prepared to bloody them."
161 <br>-- Orson Scott Card, a realization by Han Tzu in Shadow of the Giant</p>
164 "I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun."
165 <br>-- Def Poet Common </p>
168 "How can you make informed decisions ... ? The key seems to be to gather
169 experts who are knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter, and
170 have them cooperatively discuss a series of questions designed to explore
171 the limits of technical feasibility.
172 They must strive to reach the best decision rather than to persuade
174 <br>-- <a href="http://www.norvig.com/lancet.html">Peter Norvig</a>
177 "Recorded music is just a way to fill in gaps when you can't get real music."
178 <br>-- Keith Packard </p>
181 "Great leaders don't play by the existing rules."
182 <br>-- Mark Hurd, in an HP internal meeting
185 "Doesn't he know who I think I am?"
186 <br>-- Phil Collins </p>
189 "Oh my god. The impossible has happened. My mother has forwarded to me a
190 joke that not only have I not seen before, but is actually sort of funny."
191 <br>-- Eric Schwartz, on IRC </p>
194 "Whenever I try to recall that long-ago first day at school only one memory
195 shines through: my father held my hand."
196 <br>-- Marcelene Cox, American writer, from Ladies' Home Journal (1954). </p>
199 "Why should self-indulgent nonsense -- whatever its professed political
200 orientation -- be lauded as the height of scholarly achievement?"
201 <br>-- Alan D. Sokal, in
202 <a href="http://skepdic.com/sokal.html"> A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies </a>
206 "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the
207 intelligent are full of doubt."
208 <br>-- Bertrand Russell</p>
211 "The difference between stupid and intelligent people — and this is true
212 whether or not they are well-educated — is that intelligent people can
213 handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory
214 situations — in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious
215 when things seem overly straightforward."
216 <br>-- Neal Stephenson, from The Diamond Age</p>
219 "People love to hear the brag of the local boy, because they want him to be
220 great, but the foreigner must deny that he has any outstanding virtue -- this
221 is what will endear him to the locals."
222 <br>-- Orson Scott Card, a realization by a young Columbus in Pastwatch</p>
225 "Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain
226 is traded for a worthy price."
227 <br>-- Orson Scott Card, a realization by an older Columbus in Pastwatch</p>
230 "Enduring pain to do something good for someone you care about, isn't that
232 <br>-- Dr Eric Foreman, a character on the TV series House
235 "Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake."
236 <br>-- Alfred Hitchcock</p>
239 "Concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket."
240 <br>-- Andrew Carnegie</p>
243 "There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them."
244 <br>-- Niels Henrik David Bohr</p>
247 "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it."
248 <br>-- Old Chinese Proverb </p>
251 "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
252 <br>-- Robert J. Hanlon </p>
255 "Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice."
256 <br>-- Mike Albaugh</p>
259 "In any endeavour it is a fact that you have to succeed with the people who
260 are willing to participate."
261 <br>-- Fitch R. Williams, in a rec.crafts.metalworking post about teachers</p>
264 "we begin to stop / in order simply / to begin / again."
265 <br>-- Maya Angelou, the end of her poem "Late October"</p>
268 "Poetry dovetails contradictions."
269 <br>-- Marilyn Hacker, in the poem Feeling and Form</p>
272 "I'd remember everything we said, when I thought we were saying everything."
273 <br>-- Marilyn Hacker, in the poem The Regent Park Sonnets</p>
276 "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid
277 thing to want to do."
278 <br>-- Elvis Costello, in an interview by Timothy White entitled "A Man out of Time Beats the Clock." Musician magazine No. 60 (October 1983), p. 52.</p>
281 "No. Must. Not. Flame. Him."
282 <br>-- Andreas Schuldei, trying to keep a debian-devel discussion civil...</p>
285 "Every time you open your mouth in this thread, you amplify your ignorance."
286 <br>-- Ben Armstrong </p>
289 "When I was a young student, I thought grow-ups would come and make things
290 work. Now I realize that grown-ups are just kids with wrinkles."
291 <br>-- Esther Dyson </p>
294 "If everything were first-rate, what would we have to complain about?"
295 <br>-- Doug McKenna </p>
298 "We make things... and it's so much fun!"
299 <br>-- Robert D. Garbee </p>
302 "The only thing that happens if you wait, is that you get older."
303 <br>-- Mario Andretti </p>
306 "Some things are worth doing even if they aren't safe."
310 "Beer should really taste like beer."
311 <br>-- Nigel Croxon, about 80% of the way through a
312 <a href="http://www.chilibeer.com/">Cave Creek Chili Beer</a>
315 "For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance."
316 <br>-- Cartoon Law of Physics X
319 A free press is one where it's ok to state the conclusion you're led to by
324 "The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an
325 acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies;
326 who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of
327 his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself
328 humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter
329 wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements;
330 who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed
331 follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather
332 than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is
333 sacred and virtue safe."
334 <br>-- John Walter Wayland</p>
337 "A lady is never unintentionally rude."
338 <br>-- Mrs Walter Russell Winfree
341 "If ever a World Government should come into existence, it had better be a
342 government designed to be run by crooks rather than a government designed to
343 be run by gentlemen. Gentlemen are too often in short supply."
344 <br>-- Freeman J. Dyson, in his book Infinite in All Directions
347 "My job is to, like, think beyond the immediate."
348 <br>-- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., 21 April 2004
351 "Regardless of talent, the mark of a professional is the ability to
353 <br>-- Elaine Richards
356 "Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
357 he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
358 <br>-- Terry Pratchett
361 "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."
362 <br>-- Auric Goldfinger, in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Goldfinger
365 "Ultimately, I consider people to be more important than computers."
366 <br>-- Theodore Ts'o, in a posting about <a href="http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/12/28/debian-philosophy-and-people/">Debian, Philosophy, and People</a>
370 "Being awesome is exhausting."
371 <br>-- Robert D. Garbee, 18 May 2013
375 “Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of
377 <br>-- Margaret Miller
381 "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
388 "It takes more keystrokes to enter a windows license key than it takes
389 to do a complete Debian desktop install!"
393 "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming,
394 is not worth knowing."
395 <br>-- Alan Perlis</p>
398 "We now have a body of software accessible to everybody on earth so robust
399 and so profound in its possibilities, that we are a few man months away from
400 doing whatever it is that anybody wants to do with computers all the time."
401 <br>-- Eben Moglen, from a speech given at Harvard Law School
404 "There are so many clever things that could be done."
405 <br>--Dan Shearer </p>
408 "I have often thought that programmers who have
409 been taught about Big-O without also being taught about the
410 importance of constant factors, are like teenagers who have
411 been taught how to start a car and get it into gear, but
412 not how to get the condoms out of the glove-box before moving
414 <br>--Mike Albaugh </p>
417 "Debian: everything looks broken until you realize it's just the only distro
419 <br>--Dann Frazier, explaining something about Debian on IRC
422 "Looking at [the build excuses for a particular Debian package] shows
423 a dep-wait chain of despair(tm)"
424 <br>--James Troup, on the debian-hppa mailing list
427 "I have a mouse, but don't have a mouse driver for MINIX and have never felt
428 the need to write one. Typing "rm x y z" is a lot faster than clicking
429 five times and then having to convince the system that you really, truly,
430 mean it and this is not a mistake and that you are consenting adult over 18
431 and that you completely understand the consequences and you still want to
433 <br>-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, in his personal
434 <a href="http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/home/faq.html">FAQ</a></p>
437 "You know, in ten years, "no-code" will probably mean a completely different
438 thing when applied to a radio amateur. If we're still here."
439 <br>-- <a href="mailto:maggie@voicenet.com"> Margaret Leber </a> K3XS</p>
442 "From my experience, in Forth
443 I'm constantly struggling with the problems I need to solve, trying out
444 alternatives, prototyping extensions, laying out tests; while in C I'm just
445 struggling with the code, compiler and environment."
446 <br>-- Marcel Hendrix</p>
449 "Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have
450 'arguments' -- and they always win them."
451 <br>--Things Likely to be Overheard If You Hire a Klingon Programmer</p>
454 "Don't confuse the random PC architecture with the way that real systems work."
455 <br>--Matthew Wilcox</p>
458 "System administrators pray to Eris, afterwards, very softly, thanking
459 her for staying away..."
460 <br>--Kees J Bot, in comp.os.minix, talking about preparing for an upgrade...
467 "If you gotta look at it like an investment, you picked the wrong car."
468 <br>-- Stan Hanks</p>
471 "Old enough to remember when sex was safe and race cars were dangerous."
472 <br>-- <a href="mailto:carcaresp@aol.com">Larry Reynolds</a></p>
478 "I need to redirect stdout to /dev/porcelain, be back in a minute."</p>
481 "Unfortunately, that means the email I did have was mostly spam... and
482 since it's really not clear to me that increasing my breast size would
483 increase my confidence, I didn't bother reading most of it."</p>
486 "The difference between Open Source and Free Software is that Free Software
487 people know there's a difference, and Open Source people try to pretend
494 "I was all set to get annoyed, and then I thought,
495 'No, that's what they pay Bdale for ...'"
496 <br>--Eric Schwartz</p>