Quotable Quotes (but don’t quote me)

2/7/2013 6:21 PM EST

Some of the above are a bit cynical, but as George Bernard Shaw said, "The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who do not have it".

2/7/2013 6:56 PM EST

A little background is necessary for this one: Gordon Cooper, the last Mercury astronaut had a complete electrical failure - everything but his radio dead, no instruments, no control system - while in orbit. The capsule wasn't designed for pilot control so he had to manually operate the boosters with a watch and the fuel valves. After nearly dieing in space:

"... that's really what we'd been wanting to do all along. So, it just gave me the opportunity to do what we'd been wanting to do."

2/7/2013 9:01 PM EST

A variation on the Robin Hall quote would be: "Lawyers believe that a corporation is guilty until proven broke."

The buttered cat paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttered_cat_paradox) results in perpetual motion.

2/8/2013 9:49 AM EST

There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technology. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technology.

-Georges Pompidou

2/8/2013 9:51 AM EST

Never confuse motion with action.

Benjamin Franklin

2/8/2013 4:38 PM EST

I really liked the Italian proverb made me smile and think....

After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.
~ Italian proverb

2/8/2013 7:39 PM EST

"Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations."

Albert Einstein

2/8/2013 11:50 PM EST

When all else fails, Read The Manual!

2/9/2013 12:11 AM EST

"Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day, teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks." -unknown

2/11/2013 5:26 AM EST

Shouldn't that be
When all else fails read the destructions

2/11/2013 10:21 AM EST

After having a supervisor who was rightfully afraid people would find out he didn't know what he was doing, I came up with my own paranoia qoute: "Paranoid people scare me to death."
Gary L Webb
And I do understand that this quoute has some fingers pointing back at myself.

2/11/2013 2:24 PM EST

One that I seem to have a use for way too often: "Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.", Batman. (The original Adam West Batman)

2/11/2013 4:45 PM EST

One that I love, although I got a different version first time:

"The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time." —Tom Cargill, Bell Labs

I originally had this told to me with the substiturion of "job" for "code" hence making it more universally applicable. Which it is.

2/11/2013 5:09 PM EST

If it works right the first time, you've done something wrong.

2/12/2013 11:46 AM EST

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. -John Wooden

Walking on water and writing software to specification are easy as long as both are frozen.--Edward V. Berard


Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adam - Author of "Hitchhikers Guide" series

The shortest answer is doing the thing. --Ernest Hemingway

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart."
--Socrates,

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else. --Yogi Berra

“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.”--Charles Darwin

I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.--Bjarne Stroustrup

Otter: "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!"
Bluto: "And we're just the guys to do it."
--Animal House


“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently—they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward.”
—Steve Jobs

2/22/2013 2:47 PM EST

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects!" -- Robert A. Heinlein

2/22/2013 3:00 PM EST

Unfortunately I collect them as well...

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." -- Joseph Brodsky

"Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." -- Fred Brooks

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." -- Henry Ford

First let me say that I only surf pornography sites for the purpose of researching human behavior -- and someday all of mankind will benefit from my acquired wisdom. -- Michael Hickins

"The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes 

"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Einstein

Yesterday they said today was tomorrow but today they know better. -- Poul Anderson

“The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” -- Carl Sagan

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight. –- Bill Gates

“Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.” -– Martin Golding

“The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late.” -– Seymour Cray

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. –- Rick Cook

“Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.” –- Larry Wall

2/22/2013 3:43 PM EST

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is"
Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut / Yogi Berra

2/22/2013 4:15 PM EST

My email tagline:


"It's always reassuring to find you've made the right enemies."
-- William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan

[Source: "Donovann of the OSS" by Corey Ford]



From someone else's tagline:

"It's sometimes difficult to determine if quotes found on the internet are genuine or not."

- Abraham Lincoln.




"THEY (WHO) SEEK TO ESTABLISH SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT BASED ON THE REGIMENTATION OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS BY A HANDFUL OF INDIVIDUAL RULERS CALL THIS A NEW ORDER. IT IS NOT NEW AND IT IS NOT ORDER."

-- Inscription on FDR Memorial in Washington, D. C.




"The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it."
- Doctor Richard Fletcher, "It Happened Here" (1965) [IMDB.com]



Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes from "Following the Equator" (end of Chapter LXIX)

"I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake."



When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.
- Sinclair Lewis




"There's an old adage that says you don't learn a lot from a second kick in the shin by a mule."

-- Rep. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)

2/23/2013 3:25 AM EST

It seems that many of us are such collectors...

A good scientist is a person with original ideas.
A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible.
– Freeman Dyson

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.
– Clarke’s Law

It’s only late until it ships,
but it sucks forever.
– Origin Systems team

The first time you do something, you’re a scientist.
The second time you do, you’re an engineer.
The third time, you’re just a technologist.
— Clifford Stoll

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
– Alan Perlis

Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.
– Samuel T. Redwine, Jr.

Statistics are like a bikini: What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
– Aaron Levenstein

Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence.
– Edsger Dijkstra

The four most expensive words in the English language are: “This time it’s different.”
– Sir John Templeton

Engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two…
– Arthur Wellington

When testing, never ask a computer a question unless you already know the answer.
– Jim Adams

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked....
A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.
– John Gall

Lance ==)-----------
Avid student of H. L. Mencken