Quotables
Just a collection of quotes found about the web, in e-mail messages, and on Usenet. Added to as we find nifty things. ;-)
“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.” — George F. Will
“If asked whether I will do calendaring, I will happily answer ‘yes’, then press the person between heavy rollers until he or she obtains a smooth, flat finish.” — Steve VanDevender
“No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.” — Mike Andrews (in the Scary Devil Monestary)
“You have to eat well, be well housed, have a screw from time to time, smoke your pipe and drink your coffee in peace.” — Vincent Van Gogh, on being able to produce good work
“I hate being wrong, but I love it when I’m set straight.” — Harlan Ellison
“That’s why Americans hate the British. The bastards took their language skills with them when they left. Greedy is what it is. Just greedy.” — John Welch in a blog post
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” — Ernest Benn
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter from Birmingham Jail
“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter from Birmingham Jail
“My cats, on the other hand, view me as nothing more than a glorified can opener. They’d lick their paws casually as a deranged serial killer stabbed me a half a dozen times. Then, they’d eat my eyes.” — V, ViolentAcres
“The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.” — Epicurus
“Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.” — Bertrand Russell
“I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of ‘news’ is ’something that hardly ever happens.’ It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news — car crashes, domestic violence — that you should start worrying.” — Bruce Schneier, Rare Risk and Overreactions
“Part of the reason so many companies continue to develop software using variations of waterfall is the misconception that the analysis phase of waterfall completes the design and the rest of the process is just non-creative execution of programming skills.” — Steven Gordon
“Security is always extra complexity and pain for the user. It’s up to us software developers to go out of our way to make it as painless as it can reasonably be. Security only works if the secure way also happens to be the easy way.” — Coding Horror
“You know you’re getting to be too much of a geek when, in the midst of a hobby project, you suddenly find it useful to assign UUIDs to all of your friends.” - GAWollman, in the Scary Devil Monestary
“PHP was designed as an example of how not to name functions.” - Derrick Pallas, The Daily WTF
“I don’t do support without coffee. Not even if there’s a fire in the server room.” - Andy Cunningham, in the Scary Devil Monestary
“When designing an interface, imagine that your program is all that stands between the user and hot, sweaty, tangled-bedsheets-fingertips-digging-into-the-back sex.” - xkcd
“Sophocles wrote 120 plays. We have 7 and fragments of an 8th. Hell, that’s the sort of theatrical criticism you just don’t see these days, but which really really needs to be reintroduced.” - Tanuki
“‘Oriental flavored sauce’? Oh dear.” - merreborn in a DailyWTF post
“Q276304 - Error Message: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords” - RISKS 21.37
“The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.” - found at Rules for Flying (Successfully)
“I’d say you just hit on the biggest WTF of modern civilisation: a piece of paper - what somebody believes - often gets more credit than reality. Last time I checked, this was called schizophrenia. But what do I know…” - felix on The Daily WTF
“The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds it’s[sic] spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain any more so it eats it. It’s rather like getting tenure.” - Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1991)
“If Thou be a Scourge to the Newbies, thou shalt bring Confusion and Disarray but bring not Destruction nor Mayhem.” - jkhan, in Missing paralinguistics considered harmful
“God is real, unless declared integer.” - Bradlegar the Hobbit, on The Daily WTF
“[Quality software is] resistant to damage caused by new features, different requirements, and new programmers. In a lot of ways, like a Spider Plant: fractal, prolific, and cute.” - Perl Design Patterns Wiki
“For the record, I have an ultra-secure wireless network that automatically reports all hacking attempts to unsavory men with bitey dogs.” - Bruce Schneier, in a blog post
“Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain,” - Friedrich von Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801)
“Not a matter of any real concern to me, but, as a supporter of the English language, I really do feel I have to protest on principle.” - Alan J. Flavell in an alt.sysadmin.recovery post
“I know poor taste when I giggle uncontrollably at it.” - 19thNervousBreakdown in a Slashdot comment
“Teachers and librarians are the real heroes. They change the world without ever kicking down a door.” - Marko DeBeeste in a Slashdot comment
“Haven’t you heard of the Onion Layer in network security? It’s security that makes people cry, especially when a part is cut out of it with a knife.” - saskboy in a Slashdot post
“Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” - Pope John Paul II, as quoted by the Catholic League
“Luser Rule 4: Technical excellence is determined by the installed base, not by the qualities, or lack thereof, of the product.” - from an alt.sysadmin.recovery message
“Normalization is like the Holy Grail… you can never quite get it, but you can make your life really miserable trying.” - Maurits in a Daily WTF reply
“I stand on the shoulders of the people alongside whom I work. I also keep my feet flat on the ground, my shoulder to the wheel, and my eyes on the stars. It’s a very uncomfortable position.” - Mike Andrews in a USENET post
“We all die in the end. If we’re lucky, we die delicious.” - Cat and Girl
“Arbiet Macht Pie” - Cat and Girl
“If you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?” – unknown
“Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?” – Jules Feiffer
“Branches from the nearby foliage, or geological specimens, may fracture my skeletal structure; however, inaccurate descriptions of my physical appearance, heritage or personality, cannot damage my psyche.” – J. Emmett Black
“So stop [asking] what horrors will befall us when the festering patent dungheap hits the cool-breeze-blowing fan of Open Source. Because the fan gets a little dirty, and keeps right on spinning, while those flinging the feces get covered in shit.” – pla in a Slashdot comment
” To paraphrase Karl Marx: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as XML.” – smitty_one_each in a Slashdot comment
“God is only as wise as the people who created him, after all.” – paranode in a Slashdot comment
“That is a nice, shiny wheel you just reinvented…” - tilly, in Random thoughts on programming
“Users are evil. All users are evil. Do not trust them. Perl specifically offers the -T switch because it knows users are evil.” - japhy
“text-based operations on Windows feel like doing battle with a man-eating tiger, with a wet noodle as [one's] only weapon.” - apotheon in Re: [OT] Linux learning curve
“That’s about all there is to it. Now you need just to go off and buy a book about object-oriented design methodology, and bang your forehead with it for the next six months or so.” - from perlobj
“How do you define ‘useful’? This is NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Their entire charter is building giant cans that explode out of one end in order to throw chunks of metal into orbit.” - mblase in Useful?
“Yes. It really is this thing of executives loving the smell of their own urine and urinating on things. And then more execs come in, and they urinate. And then the next round. By the end, they have this thing which just smells like pee, and nobody likes it.” - Neil Gaiman in a TIME Interview
“We have a policy that we are not being hacked.” - Lisa Kopp, representing Friendster
“It’s not really a debate anymore, it’s one side with facts, and one side with earplugs.” - The_Sock in a Slashdot comment