- Who raped the cow?
- —Tom Whelan
- I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
- —Richard Nixon
- Eschew obfuscation!
- —Don Cunningham
- To actors, the greatest people in the world. Who else can, by using their own problems, causing themselves so much pain, bring others so much joy. I wish I had the strength.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Microcode is like olde English where there was no word for fighting and for someone to write about a battle he would have to describe it.
- —Tracy Kidder, paraphrased
- Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced; even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.
- —John Keats
- For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.
- —H. L. Mencken
- Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.
- —Joseph Addison
- A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.
- —Ramsey Clark
- 'Tis but a dream we share, to build castles out of air.
- —Anonymous
- I try not to form opinions, rather, I observe and learn, and when necessary I make decisions.
- —Jeff Offutt (it should be true)
- Normal scientific method holds that first a theory is postulated and then tested and found to be right or wrong. But in AI our theories are never that complete, because the processes we are theorizing about are so complex. This evolutionary way of thinking is a virtual requirement in AI and probably in any science whose domain is so complex as to make isolated testing of little use.
- —Roger Shank "Inside Computer Understanding"
- The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measure anew every time he sees me, whilst all the rest go on with their old measurements, expecting them to fit me.
- —George Bernard Shaw
- Successful researchers are usually those who have the insight to find a problem that is both solvable and important.
- —David Parnas "Software Aspects of SDI"
- We often do not know how to make those decisions [about a system design] until we can play with the system.
- —David Parnas "Software Aspects of SDI"
- My life is has been one continual search for answers to one short question. The subject and the answer changes, but the question remains simply" "Why?".
- —The Anonymous Researcher
- A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
- —Antoine de Saint, Exupery "Flight to Arras"
- Hit the ball over the fence and you can take your time going around the bases.
- —Logan Pearsall Smith "After Thoughts"
- People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.
- —Thomas Szasz "The Second Sin"
- The real secret of patience is to find something else to do in the meantime.
- —"Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games"
- The element of chance in basic research is overrated. Chance is a lady who smiles on those few who know how to make her smile.
- —Hans Selye "The Saturday Evening Post"
- Si vi pacem, para bellum-- If you want peace, prepare for war.
- —Latin adage
- Maybe I shouldn't start out with a story-- so I will start with a story.
- —Craig Tovey, GaTech, Linear Programming
- You have the same right to smoke as you do to swing your arms. And both rights end where my nose begins.
- —Cris Simpson, Technique, 1/24/86
- What do you call a two part lemma? A di-lemma!
- —Alan Delk, 1/31/86
- When inspiration is silent, reason tires quickly.
- —Roger Zelazney, "Trumps of Doom"
- The true subject matter of the programmer is not programs, but the design of computations.
- —Dijkstra, SigPlan, July 1985
- The true subject matter of the tester is not testing, but the design of test cases.
- —Jeff Offutt
- A grade is an inadequate report of an inaccurate judgment by a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of material.
- —George W. Tauxe, University of Oklahoma
- Life is like a basketball game. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The important thing is to be ahead when the buzzer goes off.
- —Jeff Offutt
- One of the easiest ways of making an algorithm run faster is not to run it at all.
- —James Gosling, PhD Thesis
- Into everyone's life, a little rain must fall, but this is ridiculous.
- —Noah
- I hate quotation.
- —Ralph Waldo Emerson
- I'll whup his ass!
- —Jimmy Carter (referring to the outcome of the 1980 election)
- Well, now that we've destroyed the bridge and the dam, we've got one last problem: we're on the wrong side of the river.
- —Force 10 From Navarone
- A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon.
- —Steel City News
- The president publicly apologized today to all those offended by his brother's remark, 'There's more Arabs in this country then there is Jews!'. Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers.
- —Channel 11 news.
- During the Reagan-Mondale debates... Q: Do you feel that a person's age affects his ability to perform as president? REAGAN: I refuse to make an issue out of my opponent's youth and inexperience.
- —Ronald Reagan
- We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say socialism?
- —Fidel Castro
- The rest of the proof should be obvious.
- —Any math teacher
- It is to the interest of the commonwealth of mankind that there should be someone who is unconquered, someone against whom fortune has no power.
- —Seneca
- Software engineering is to programming as mathematics is to arithmetic.
- —Melanie Ashburn
- Programming is to computer science as arithmetic is to mathematics.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.
- —Palmer Sondreal
- Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that god can't help but smile on it.
- —Josh Billings
- I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.
- —Judge Harry Stone
- If it matters not if you win or lose, why do they keep score?
- —Adolph Rupp
- One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.
- —Heinrich Heine
- It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion.
- —William Ralph Inge
- Violence never settles anything.
- —Genghis Khan
- Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.
- —Napoleon Bonaparte
- The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that this is true.
- —James Branch Cabell
- It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
- —Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
- He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.
- —Halifax, Greg Benford and David Brin, Heart of the Comet, Bantam 1986
- His head's so far up his ass he eats recursively.
- —Jeff Offutt
- At some point when a sufficient number of test cases have been run (a point often equivalent to the programmer's becoming bored with testing) the process stops and the program is deemed correct.
- —Tim Budd, Mutation Analysis of Program Test Data, PhD Thesis 1980
- A superstition is simply a premature explanation that has outlived its time.
- —George Illes
- If you build a better mouse trap you will catch better mice.
- —George Gobel
- Show me a man who is perfect and I'll show you a man who has no goals.
- —Jeff Offutt
- A few weeks in the lab can save several hours in the library.
- —Gene Spafford (repeated from anonymous)
- So, think you're going to write a thesis, huh? Big mistake. I did and they made me leave! Be careful!
- —Dave Pitts
- Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
- —St. Francis of Assissi
- One has the right to be wrong in a democracy.
- —Rep. Claude Pepper
- No one who works a forty hour week is ever going to beat me.
- —Bill Rogers (professional runner)
- I can only assume that a 'Do Not File' document is filed in a 'Do Not File' file."
- —Senator Frank Church, Senate Intelligence Subcommittee Hearing, 1975
- I'm having trouble calibrating myself because I keep calibrating myself to nothing.
- —Mike McCracken
- Research: Survival of the most convincing.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Probability is my life.
- —Ian Akyldiz
- Maturity is knowing when and where to be immature.
- —Anonymous
- It ain't over till it's over.
- —SPORTS: BASEBALL: ???
- By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all.
- —Brad Sherman
- No need to be solemn in order to be serious.
- —Oskar Date
- I am at my most serious when I am joking.
- —Dr. 5 ?????
- A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
- —Sen. Everett Dirksen
- The proof is in the pudding.
- —Parable
- I can't get no satisfaction!
- —Mick Jagger
- If I had 6 hours to cut down a tree I'd spend 4 hours sharpening my axe.
- —folk saying
- Science, from its very beginning, has been surrounded by a halo of pseudo-science, which rises like steam from various half-educated heads.
- —Lem
- Ron Graham, by the way, was a world famous mathematician. He died from cancer in 2003.
- —Ron Graham
- What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic existentialist? Is there a dog?
- —Anonymous
- The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-- and you are the easiest person to fool.
- —Richard Feynman (Nobel '65)
- 1927: Anybody who isn't shocked by quantum physics doesn't understand it.
- —Neils Bohr
- 1967: Nobody understands quantum physics!
- —Richard Feynman
- To betray, you must first belong. I never belonged.
- —H. A. R. "Kim" Philby, British traitor
- The ease of completion of a task varies inversely with the square of the time of procrastination.
- —James P. Hogan
- If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't worry about who makes its laws. Today, television tells most of the stories to most of the people most of the time.
- —George Gerbner
- Where is the wisdom we lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we lost in information?
- —T. S. Eliot
- If it works, it must be possible
- —Anonymous
- I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
- —Isaac Asimov
- Great minds have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- —James T. Kirk
- When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better.
- —Mae West
- Your mother's eyes, through your eyes, cry to me.
- —Brian May, Queen, "'39", Night at the Opera
- Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
- —Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1757
- When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
- —Lord Kelvin
- The meek shall inherit the earth, but they won't get the ball!!!!!
- —Charles Barkley
- The function of all nations is to enhance life, not to control it.
- —Sir William Stephenson (Intrepid)
- Lest I continue My complacent way, Help me to remember Somewhere out there A man died for me today. As long as there be war I then must Ask and answer; Am I worth dying for?
- —Sir William Stephenson (Intrepid)
- The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
- —Gandhi
- If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to go fishing, you feed him for a lifetime.
- —Gandhi
- But hey--- to be honest, I wasn't really setting out to write about grand themes. I set out to write about Jax and Danny-Boy, two people living in a difficult and complex world.
- —Path Murphy, The City, Not Long After
- It's a poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
- —Andrew Jackson
- I'm flip, which is just another way of being shy.
- —The Social Security play
- It takes three weeks to prepare a good ad-lib speech.
- —Mark Twain
- I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
- —Mark Twain
- I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
- —Mark Twain
- A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
- —Mark Twain
- I do not like work even when someone else does it.
- —Mark Twain
- Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him to the ground on top of me.
- —Mark Twain
- Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.
- —Mark Twain
- I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs to life under a sting even better than under a caress.
- —Andre Gide
- Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
- —Somerset Maughum
- Don't mind criticism-- If it is untrue, disregard it, If it is unfair, don't let it irritate you, If it is ignorant, smile, If it is justified, learn from it,
- —???
- To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
- —Elbert Hubbard
- While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
- —Henry C. Link
- A philosopher doesn't really care what side his bread is buttered on because he eats both sides anyway.
- —???
- Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.
- —George Crane
- Do more than exist-- live; Do more than touch-- feel; Do more than look-- observe; Do more than read-- absorb; Do more than hear-- listen; Do more than listen-- understand; Do more than think-- ponder; Do more than talk-- say something
- —???
- Man who says it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it!
- —Chinese proverb
- The reason some people don't recognize opportunity is because it often comes disguised as hard work.
- —Cary Grant
- An intellectual is a guy with a lot of knowledge nobody is willing pay for.
- —??
- Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
- —Goethe
- We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.
- —T. S. Eliot
- The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
- —Albert Einstein
- Legs are the wheels of creativity
- —Albert Einstein
- When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute- and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.
- —Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner in physics, 1879-1955
- I have so much to do today, I'll need to spend another hour on my knees.
- —Martin Luther
- The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.
- —Chuang Tzu
- Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
- —Heraclitus
- Good speling and gramar arent everything but it shure helps. Discipline can easily stifle creativity, but creativity without discipline is of very limited value.
- —Peter Neumann
- To hate is to study, to study is to understand, to understand is to appreciate, to appreciate is to love.
- —John A. Wheeler
- If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.
- —John A. Wheeler
- An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
- —Niels Bohr, Danish Scientist
- A new 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.
- —Niels Bohr
- Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
- — Niels Bohr
- Theories are more like graduate students-- once admitted, you try hard to avoid flunking them out.
- —Newell, 1990, p. 14
- A scientist endeavors to understand the world, an AI person tries to simulate it.
- —Derek Partridge
- Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
- —Chomsky (semantics/syntax)
- If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.
- —Kurt Lewin
- Hors d'oeuvres remind me of my childhood that we rush through, wondering what the next course is going to be like-- and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more hors d'oeuvres.
- —Saki
- There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he who thinks himself the happiest man really is so; but he who thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
- —Charles Caleb Cohen
- We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
- —Montaigne
- Bill Dickey is learning me his experience.
- —Yogi Berra in his rookie season.
- So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face.
- —Yogi Berra
- REPORTER: "How did you like school when you were growing up, Yogi?" YOGI BERRA: "Closed." KEN BOSWELL: "I'm in a rut. I can't break myself of this habit. I keep swinging up at the ball." YOGI BERRA: "Well, swing down." RUBE WALKER: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?" YOGI BERRA: "You mean now?"
- —Yogi Berra
- I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.
- —Yogi Berra
- A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.
- —Yogi Berra
- Yeah, what paper you write for, Ernie?
- —Yogi Berra after being introduced to Ernest Hemingway.
- If the people don't want to come out to the park, nobody's going to stop 'em.
- —Yogi Berra
- Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded.
- —Yogi Berra
- I'm a lucky guy, and I'm happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.
- —Yogi Berra at a dinner in his honor.
- In baseball, you don't know nothing.
- —Yogi Berra
- The game's not over until it's over.
- —Yogi Berra
- INTERVIEWER: "I understand you had an audience with the Pope." YOGI BERRA: "No, but I saw him." INTERVIEWER: "Did you get to talk to him?" YOGI BERRA: "I sure did. We had a nice little chat." INTERVIEWER: "What did he say?" YOGI BERRA: "Ya know, he must read the papers a lot, because he said, 'Hello, Yogi.'" INTERVIEWER: "And what did you say?" YOGI BERRA: "I said, 'Hello, Pope.'"
- —Yogi Berra
- MARY LINDSAY: "You look nice and cool Yogi." YOGI BERRA: "You don't look so hot yourself."
- —Yogi Berra
- REPORTER: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?" YOGI BERRA: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back."
- —Yogi Berra
- Okay, who's in it?
- —Yogi Berra (when asked if he wanted to see a dirty movie).
- Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.
- —Yogi Berra
- GEORGE BUSH: "Yogi, Texas is very, very important." YOGI BERRA: "I know, Texas has a lot of electrical votes."
- —Yogi Berra
- Is he living? Is he living now?
- —Yogi Berra (playing 20 questions).
- JOE PAGE: "[I] had been hunting with Enos Slaughter, and Enos had been jumping in and out of the bushes so much looking for quail that he got a cyst on his back." YOGI BERRA: "What kind of bird is a cyst?"
- —Yogi Berra
- Even the music was nice.
- —Yogi Berra (speaking of the opera "Tosca").
- LARRY BERRA: "The man is here for the Venetian blinds." YOGI BERRA: "Look in my pants pocket and give him five bucks."
- —Yogi Berra
- I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.
- —Yogi Berra
- He is a big clog in their machine.
- —Yogi Berra
- Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.
- —Yogi Berra
- It gets late early out there.
- —Yogi Berra
- WOMAN: "Is Yoo-Hoo hyphenated?" YOGI BERRA: "No, ma'am, its not even carbonated."
- —Yogi Berra
- We are actually pretty good at getting our software right according to specifications ... what we are not good at is getting the specification right.
- —Martin Thomas, Keynote address, TAV4
- It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible.
- —Aristotle
- Perfection is the enemy of the good.
- —Gustave Flaubert, French 19th novelist
- Abstraction should be used to _handle_ complexity, not to _ignore_ it.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Men desire the object of their desire and women desire the state of desiring.
- —Pam Houston, "I'm a Sucker for Cowboys"
- In a randomly infinite Universe, any event occurring here and now with finite probability must be occurring simultaneously at an infinite number of other sites in the Universe. It is hard to evaluate this idea any further, but one thing is certain: if it is true then it is certainly not original!
- —John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
- It may be true that in a very deep, human sense there is no neutral individual, because everyone, if he is worth anything has to have his ideas and ideals. But what I do claim is that even a man who is in that sense not neutral can very well undertake and carry through neutral actions because that is an act of integrity.
- —Dag Hammarskjold, UN Secretary-General
- Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
- —Jim Horning
- If life were fair, the acquisition of a large bosom or a massive inheritance would have no bearing on your ability to attract the opposite sex, and Dan Quayle would be making a living asking runny-nosed children, `Do you want fries with that?'
- —John Cleese, "Corporate Computing" magazine
- When you're doing nothing it's hard to know when to stop.
- —Anonymous
- Leadership is making other people believe in you.
- —Larry Bird, "Drive"
- Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world.
- —Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
- He had the guts to risk failure.
- —Bill Clinton's campaign manager, on why he won in 92.
- We do not have these rights because they are written down. We wrote them down because we have these rights.
- —Jim Purtilo
- We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.
- —Chinese economic journal rejection letter
- If you sit on the bench, don't expect a trophy.
- —Mary Jean Harrold
- Some men see things as they are and say "Why?". I dream things that never were, and say, "Why not?"
- —George Bernard Shaw (Made famous by Robert Kennedy, often attributed to John Kennedy)
- To understand a man, you must know his memories. The same is true of a nation.
- —Anthony Quayle on "The Heart of the Dragon", SC ETV
- Dig the well before you are thirsty.
- —Chinese proverb
- A hundred times every day, I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received.
- —Albert Einstein
- Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
- —Benjamin Spock
- Flattery: The art of telling a person exactly what he thinks of himself.
- —Paul H. Gilbert
- American: It's Greek to me. Greek: Stop talking Chinese! Chinese: Your words are like Buddha's attendant, 12 feet tall, whose head I cannot reach! Poles: I am hearing a sermon in Turkish! French: Pray stop talking Hebrew! Jews: Stop knocking a teapot!
- —???
- Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wish we had.
- —Nancy Samalin
- I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
- —Albert Einstein
- Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old.
- —Lewis Lapham
- Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
- —Euripides
- If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either of you for the rest of the day.
- —???
- Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house.
- —Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- The man who rows the boat generally doesn't have time to rock it.
- —Proverb
- THose who make the coffee never get credit.
- —Peter Denning
- RIDDLE: What's the difference between an American and an Englishman? ANSWER: The Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way, and the American thinks that a hundred years is a long time.
- —???
- It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty will be charged to dangers, real or imagined, from abroad.
- —James Madison
- A man asked Gandhi to help get his son off sugar. Gandhi asked him to come back in a week. A week later, Gandhi talked to the son and the son quit sugar. The man asked Gandhi "Why didn't you talk to him last week?" and Gandhi said "Last week I was on sugar".
- —Gandhi
- Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.
- —P. J. O'Rourke
- A quote, like an epigram, is only expressive if it says something to the reader.
- —Jeff Offutt
- It is easy to make things hard. It is hard to make things easy.
- —A. Chapanis, 1982
- May you live in interesting times.
- —Chinese curse (proverb?)
- Nothing is really work unless you'd rather be doing something else.
- —James M. Barrie
- You don't stop playing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop playing.
- —Ray Kaminski
- Good fences make good neighbors.
- —Robert Frost
- That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
- —Nietzche
- Object-oriented, that "oat bran" of computer science.
- —Anita Jones, Keynote, ICSE-15
- MOTIVATION Within us all lies a mighty, unexplored passion. Each of us has the ability for greatness, for reaching high above the norm.
- —???
- It is self-motivation which for all times has driven man to heights he never thought possible ... which led us to the skies first fluttering precariously then soaring like an eagle to new and distant worlds.
- —???
- We all possess a certain inner creativity which when fulfilled brings as its reward a satisfaction and personal pride which is unequaled.
- —???
- Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that it will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
- —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
- Much that passes for education is not education at all, but ritual. The fact is, we are being educated when we know it the least.
- —David P. Gardner
- Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
- —Eugene S. Wilson
- It is the business of the future to be dangerous.... The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.
- —Alfred North Whitehead (British polymath) Adventures in Ideas
- Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.
- —George Will
- We only really understand something when we can explain it in simple terms.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Maturity is when you know not to do the things you have to apologize for, and not apologizing for the things you have to do.
- —Ask Helen
- The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present.
- —Abraham Lincoln
- It seem to me that even the bluntest word, the bluntest letter is more good natured, still more honest, than silence.
- — [Ecce Homo, Nietzsche]
- The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- —George Bernard Shaw
- You are younger than you will ever be again.
- — Sandy Mayo
- Sellers and scientists will never trust each other. Sellers have one goal-- to sell-- and any means justifies the ends. It is perfectly valid to manipulate emotions, obfuscate the truth, and utilize confusion to make the sale. Scientists, on the other hand, value only the truth. Scientists try very hard to ignore/eliminate emotions, reduce confusion, and clarify the truth. An emotional response must be analyzed to determine if it has a logical basis, or if it should be discounted. Scientists don't trust salespersons because they do not value truth, and salespersons don't trust scientists because they are hard to sell to.
- — Jeff Offutt
- Intelligence is the ability to perceive patterns. Genius is the ability to perceive patterns where the bulk of mankind cannnot. Scholarship is the ability to perceive patterns where there aren't any.
- —Michael J. Moran, Director of Mechanical Technology, Kolmar Laboratories, Inc.- New York
- If you are not free to fail, you are not free.
- — Gene Burns
- People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
- — Kierkegaard
- Any fool can build a bridge that will stand up. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that will _just_ stand up.
- —???, After-dinner address, COMPASS 94
- The sandbox approach to research management: Create an interesting environment, get some curious people, and try to keep upper level management out of their way.
- —???, After-dinner address, COMPASS 94
- Now I wish that I had studied harder, but I don't remember ever wanting to study harder while I was in college.
- — John Muller
- Asking dumb questions is easier than correcting dumb mistakes.
- — David Israel
- Sometimes I can sound very clear ... until you try to put it into your own words. That is when I know I am at my clearest.
- — Jeff Offutt
- The title of the thesis is 90% of the work.
- — Manny Lehman
- I try to follow the advice that a university president once gave a prospective commencement speaker. "Think of yourself as the body at a Irish wake," he said. "They need you in order to have the party, but nobody expects you to say much."
- —National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, addressing students and faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- There are 3 kinds of lies:-- lies, damn lies, statistics.
- — Disraeli, nineteenth-century British prime minister
- People call me lazy, but it takes all my time.
- —Joe Walsh
- Here, try this. It's called root beer. Ugh, it's vile! Yes, it's sweet, and cloying, and ... bubbly. And so ... happy! Just like the Federation!? And you know what's worse? If you drink enough of it, you start to like it. It's insidious! Just like the Federation.
- —Star Trek: Deep Space 9
- To understand ranch lingo all yuh have to do is know in advance what the other feller means an' then pay no attention to what he says.
- —Philip Ashton Rollins, Cheyenne, WY, 1922
- To move ahead, the leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
- —Teddy Roosevelt
- In the west you can look further and see less than any other place in the world.
- —Anonymous Arizona Rancher
- Some people come into our lives and quietly go ... others stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.
- —Anonymous
- Being American is not a matter of birth. We must practice it every day, lest we become something else.
- —Malcolm Wallop
- Art is the signature of civilization.
- —Beverly Sills
- One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
- —Shakespeare
- Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
- —Shakespeare, Othello
- When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves.
- —George Pataki
- Those who are afraid to ask are ashamed of learning.
- —Danish proverb
- Say what you have to say, not what you ought.
- —Henry David Thoreau
- Java is C++ without pointers.
- —Larry Bernstein
- Being a college professor is great-- we can work any 12 hours a day we want!
- —Donna Quammman
- Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef, the urgency of the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task, but it cannot govern the actual completion. An omelette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices-- wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices.
- —Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month"
- Never test for a bug you don't know how to fix.
- —Mike McCracken
- Quality is a noun.
- —Robert Pirsig, "Lila"
- Nevertheless, the scientist builds in order to study; the engineer studies in order to build.
- —Fred Brooks "The Computer Scientist as Toolsmith II", CACM, March 1996
- Be happy while y'er leevin, For y'er a lang time deed.
- —Scottish motto for a house circa 1901
- Tell me and I may forget Show me and I may remember Involve me and I will understand
- —Chinese proverb
- If atheism is a religion, then 'barefoot' is a type of shoe.
- —Brad Macdonald
- A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
- —John Ciardi
- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
- —Charlie McCarthy
- "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic"-- it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed.
- —Randy Davis
- Che zou che lu Ma zou ma lu. (Car takes car's road, horse takes horse's road.)
- —Chinese folk saying
- Don't think of me as the boss. Think of me as a co-worker who's always right.
- —Bob Thaves
- It is as wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his.
- —Tony Benn
- Politics is simply adjusting rules that objectively provide for human needs to satisfy human subjective desires.
- —Jeff Offutt
- The pencil is mightier than the pen ... because it's erasable.
- —Robert Pirsig, Lila
- You govern a kingdom by normal rules; You fight a war by exceptional moves; But you win the world by leaving it alone.
- —Lao Tzu
- A man must learn to be a good follower before he can be a great leader.
- —Aristotle
- A college professor is someone smart enough to get a Ph.D., but too crazy to make a living.
- —Ralph Nobel, RPI
- If I had any humility I would be perfect.
- —Ted Turner
- THOUGHTS ON WISDOM
- —???
- If you cannot say what you mean, you will never mean what you say.
- —???
- Is it better to be unwise in the eyes of the wise, or wise in the eyes of the unwise?
- —???
- You cannot depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.
- —???
- Science is nothing but trained and organized common-sense.
- —???
- If I am right no-one remembers, if I am wrong no-one forgets.
- —???
- Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt.
- —???
- By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
- —???
- The best thing about bright ideas is: Anyone can have them.
- —???
- It is not what you are! It is what you do not become that hurts ...
- —sources unknown
- DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans.
- —New York Times, 11/26/91
- Beauty is a gift from nature, but age is a work of art.
- —???
- As long as you stand in your own way, everything seems to be in your way.
- —???
- I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.
- —Groucho Marx
- C is a formal language, it's just a particularly sillily designed one. There are worse ones, for example Z.
- —David Parnas
- A good manager is someone who knows how to get things done without knowing how to do them.
- —David Parnas
- Democracy is a terrible form of government, but it's better than all the others.
- —Winston Churchill
- No day in which you learn something is a complete loss.
- —David Eddings, King of the Murgos
- The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.
- —Lao Tzu
- In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. They they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
- —Martin Niemoeller, on the Nazi Holocaust
- Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
- —Arthur Schopenhauer
- Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
- —Thomas Jefferson
- The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
- —F. Scott Fitzgerald
- It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.
- —Robert H. Goddard
- The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.
- — Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2000
- The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
- —James Madison, 4th US President
- Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
- —Harry S. Truman
- Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
- —???
- You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
- —Dean Martin
- Everything is changing but nothing changes.
- —Liu Jian
- Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity.
- —??
- To have a child is wonderous for it is having your heart to walk around outside of you.
- —??
- If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his true friend.
- —Abraham Lincoln
- Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.
- —Thomas Sowell
- It takes a couple of decades to realize that you were well taught. All true education is a delayed-action bomb assembled in the classroom for explosion at a later date. An educational fuse 50 years long is by no means unusual.
- —Howard G. Hendricks
- Silence is a text easy to misread.
- —A. A. Attanasia
- To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
- —Marilyn Vos Savant
- Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question ... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use.
- —Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
- Anyone can be good, but only those who stretch can be brilliant.
- —Frank Bellotti, Soccer coach
- To remember is to understand. A good judge remembers what it was like to be a lawyer. A good editor remembers what it was like to be a writer. A good teacher remembers what it was like to be a student. A good parent remembers what it was like to be a child.
- —???
- Remember the high board at the swimming pool? After days of looking up at it you finally climbed the wet steps to the platform. From there, it was higher than ever. There were only two ways down: the steps to defeat or the dive to victory. You stood on the edge, shivering in the hot sun, deathly afraid. At last you leaned too far forward, it was too late for retreat, and you dived. The high board was conquered, and you spent the rest of the day diving. Climbing a thousand high boards, we demolish fear, and turn into human beings.
- —Richard Bach
- I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
- —Thomas Jefferson
- Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.
- —Nikki Giovanni
- Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.
- —Ursula K. Le Guin
- The problem with manu of our students is they come to the table already full of popcorn, and we're trying to feed them vegetables.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Like the ski resort full of girls hunting for husbands and husbands hunting for girls the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
- —Alan MacKay
- There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
- —Alfred Korzybski
- It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.
- —Warren Buffett
- Nothing levels a playing field like a better idea.
- —Stanley I. Mason, Jr.
- Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.
- —Peter T. McIntyre
- MY TEACHING: What you discover on your own is always more exciting than what someone else discovers for you-- it's like the diference between romantic love and an arranged marriage.
- —Terrence Rafferty
- It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown-- as for children-- the days are long with gathering of experience.
- —George Gissing
- The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.
- —Charles Lamb
- We come to love not by finding a perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
- —Sam Keen
- There's nothing so dangerous for manipulators as people who think for themselves.
- —Meg Greenfield
- PATIENCE: Truth, which is indestructible, has a way of accumulating against pride and arrogance, and then sweeping them from its path.
- —Mark Helprin
- You can't only do what's possible, you must change what's possible.
- —Eliot Feld, Ballet director
- After having Conrad, I always think that I should have had children earlier so I can enjoy them longer.
- —Pi Hui Hsiang
- To fight with someone, we must first acknowledge that person as our equal.
- —Jeff Offutt
- If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- —Mark Twain
- A good home must be made, not bought.
- —Joyce Maynard
- Freedom to be your best means nothing unless you're willing to do your best.
- —Colin Powell
- Love is the alias of understanding.
- —Tigr (An Indian writer)
- Be nice to your siblings. When you grow up, they are your connection to your past and the only people in the world that you can always count on, no matter what.
- —I don't know
- An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
- —Ernest Hemingway
- A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
- —W. C. Fields
- Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- —Benjamin Franklin
- To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
- —W. H. Auden, "Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier"
- Academics: there is no other profession that provides more freedom and unlimited challenges. And, somewhere along the line, we make a difference that may be improved on but never erased.
- —Jane Burns
- A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.
- —Max Gluckman
- A science is any discipline in which fifth graders today can go beyond the most incredible geniuses of yesterday.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Like a stone thrown in the ocean, teachers make small changes that are easily overlooked, but whose effects continue forever in ways that are seldom attributed. An education is one thing that can never be taken away from you, and a teacher is a person who always stays with you.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Technology is the knack of arranging the world so that we don't have to experience it.
- —Max Frisch (Swiss playwright)
- I don't know which technologies will survive the internet era, but I do know that none of us will.
- —Jeff Offutt (ICECCS 2000 Panel)
- There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America.
- —Bill Clinton. First inaugural address, 1993.
- Travel is a triple delight: anticipation, performance, and recollection.
- —Ilka Chase
- If you have it (the problem), then fix it, otherwise use it to encourage you.
- —Chinese folk saying
- Good medicine tastes bitter, but is good for health.
- —Chinese folk saying
- The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- —William Arthur Ward, English novelist
- Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
- —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and dramatist
- What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.
- —Aristotle
- We are what we repeatedly do. Excellent, then, is not an act, but a habit.
- —Aristotle
- They know enough who know how to learn.
- —Henry Adams, American historian and scholar
- Not to know certain things is a great part of wisdom.
- —Hugo Grotius, Dutch jurist and statesman
- Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
- —James Baldwin
- Students have all the answers ... Professor: Why is grass green? Student 1: The sky is blue because ... Student 2: Grass is a very bright shade of green. Student 3: The grass is green because the grass is green. Student 4: It is grass, therefore it is green.Student 5: The grass is green because we like it.
- —???
- An error doesn't become a mistake until you don't correct it.
- —Source unknown
- I don't give grades, you earn them.
- —Source unknown
- ....we must get away from the idea that serious work is ... "restricted to beating to death a well-defined problem in a narrow discipline, while broadly integrative thinking is relegated to cocktail parties. In academic life, in bureaucracies and elsewhere, we encounter a lack of respect for the task of integration"
- —Murray Gell-Mann (Nobel Laureate) The Quark and the Jaguar quoted here in "Frontiers of Complexity" by Coveney and Highfield. (from John Clark)
- I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.
- —Robert Brault
- From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.
- —Arthur Ashe
- And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
- —Abraham Lincoln
- Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- —John Wooden
- Adversity introduces us to ourselves
- —A poet
- Fine dining will make you fat, but fresh butter on cornbread will make you cry.
- —Chris Offutt, No Heroes
- If you want to get enlightenment, then what you need most of all are a Great Question and try-mind. Complete determination. Only try. Only try. Only do it.
- —Seung Sahn
- Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
- —Kulawiec
- The software is done. We're just trying to get it to work
- —Statement made in a Joint STARS E-8A FSD Executive Program
- To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
- —Unknown
- In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
- —Yogi Berra
- Success does not consist of never making mistakes, but never making the same one the second time.
- —George Bernard Shaw
- Successful people will do what unsuccessful people won't.
- —Joe McGraw
- I have many colleagues who think the purpose of research is to please themselves.
- —Dave Parnas
- Many managers believe the way to make a software engineer is to teach him Java.
- —Dave Parnas
- UML- The Undefined Modeling Language
- —Dave Parnas
- Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- —Mahatma Gahdhi
- I am still learning.
- —Michaelangelo (at age 87)
- Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
- —Ralph Waldo Emerson
- I'm not sure if anybody will be confused enough to be confused about this, but never hurts to preempt confusion with clarity.
- —Jeff Offutt (writing)
- Occam's Razor is the rule of parsimony: Pluralitas non ponenda est sine necessitate. [Keep it simple, stupid.]
- —William of Ockham (1288-1348).
- Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
- —Joshua J. Marine
- We're trying to explain how things are going, and they are going as they are going. Some things are going well, and some things obviously are not going well.
- —Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense 2001-2008, lost the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.
- Abstraction means to leave out certain details-- they must be documented elsewhere.
- —Dave Parnas
- My job as an engineer is not to invent new mathematics, but to find new ways to use old mathematics.
- —Dave Parnas
- If I have seen farther than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
- —Isaac Newton, circa 1620
- Pygmies who stand on the shoulders of giants see farther than the giants.
- —Bernard of Chartres, circa 1250
- Jeff, you are the best tone-deaf musician I have ever known.
- —Phil Shepherd (my high school band director)
- As my children grow my dreams come alive.
- —Chuck Mangione, Children of Sanchez
- Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. . . . Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense.
- —Sam Seaborn, West Wing (#18)
- Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
- —Benjamin Franklin
- Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
- —Benjamin Franklin
- The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
- —James Russell Lowell
- As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
- —Albert Einstein
- George Mason became less of a team than an ideal in March, the notion that five kids from anywhere can call "Next" and hold the court against anyone at any time.
- —Mike Wise, Sports Columnist, after GMU reached the final four
- Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.
- —Francis Bacon
- Corruption of the best is the worst. Corruptio optimi pessima
- —Latin proverb, President Jeb Bartlett, West Wing
- Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
- —Henry A. Kissinger
- You're clverer than you look. Yet, better than looking cleverer then you are.
- — Q, James Bond, "Die Another Day"
- Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- —Abraham Lincoln
- I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- —Thomas Edison
- It would be easier to write papers on testing if you didn't have to contemplate actually using the stuff you are writing.
- —Richard Carver
- I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.
- —Mark Twain
- I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
- —Mark Twain
- Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
- —Mark Twain
- I am sorry for the length of my letter, but I had not the time to write a short one. Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
- —Blaise Pascal
- Everybody falls now and then. It's not just you. The important thing is not to let it throw you, make you afraid.
- —David Eddings, The Losers
- The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water, working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
- —Henry David Thoreau, US author and philosopher, 1817- 1862
- In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
- —Lao Tzu, Chinese Taoist philosopher, b c.500 BCE
- However firmly it is applied, pressure in itself does not always yield results. A gentler approach over a longer period of time will often produce the most enduring and permanent results.
- —???
- The gentlest, most benign methods of attacking the toughest situations can appear laughably weak at the outset, but may well prove unbeatable in the long run.
- —???
- A true measure of a person is the quality of his or her enemies.
- —???
- Computer Scientists divide and conquer. Systems Engineers aggregate and visualize.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Client-side input validation is like letting your opponent hold your shield while he bangs his sword on it!
- —Jeff Offutt
- A man can't get rich if he takes proper care of his family.
- —Navajo saying
- If you have nothing to say, you don't have to put it into words.
- —Alex Brodsky
- The cure for loneliness is not more socializing. It's achieving and maintaining close friendships; trust that allows one to be vulnerable, to discuss problems that resist a solution, without having to risk being judged or dismissed.
- —Barry Lopez
- I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
- —Maya Angelou
- We have as many testers as we have developers. And developers spend half their time testing. We're more of a testing organization than we're a software organization.
- —Bill Gates of Microsoft
- Clarke's three "laws" of prediction: 1. 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 very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- —Sir Arthur C. Clarke
- A patent is a license to be sued.
- —Sir Arthur C. Clarke
- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
- —Knuth (testing)
- Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
- —E. Dikjstra, Notes on Structured Programming
- The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity.
- —Norman Ralph Augustine
- Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing.
- —Norman Ralph Augustine
- Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
- —Norman Ralph Augustine
- It costs a lot to build bad products.
- —Norman Ralph Augustine
- It is impossible to insult a man who is not unsure of himself.
- —Robert Heinlein
- WAPD : Working As Poorly Designed
- —???
- Committee: A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
- —???
- War: A painful way to learn geography.
- —???
- Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.
- —Mason Cooley
- Travel is a sequence of nuisances puncutated by joy. (or excitement, learning opportunities, growth)
- —???
- We don't measure success by how many times we get knocked down, but how well we get back up.
- —Joe Biden
- I hear and i forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.
- —Confucius
- Early is on time, on time is late, late is very late.
- —Denton Stokes, Robinson High School band director
- I wasn't losing, I was learning how to win.
- —Ted Turner
- Definition in most CS 1 textbooks: "A program is a series of instructions for a computer." Who is it for? Who is it for? This is like describing a house as a collection of building materials and an architecture. WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL LIVE IN IT? Ignore this and lay the groundwork for all the problems students have with Software Engineering!
- —Cen Kaner
- In war, resolution In defeat, defiance In victory, magnanimity
- —Winston Churchill
- Four eyes are better than two
- —Swedish proverb
- The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- —Alan Kay
- Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
- —Fowler
- I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity.
- —Oliver Wendell Holmes
- As technology matures, the planet is increasingly becoming enveloped in a "software skin" of interconnected, interdependent processes, under which software controls and regulates both the "blood flow" of information and the "mechanisms of action".
- —Mark Harman, 2009
- Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colours from our sight. red is grey and yellow white, but we decide which is right and which is an illusion.
- —Moody Blues, Nights of White Satin
- The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor.
- —John Allen Paulos
- I have an almost religious zeal- not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up.
- —Ian Millman
- The world wide web is the nervous system of the human race.
- —Jeff Offutt
- You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site.
- —Frank Lloyd Wright
- His clarity was a liability because he had nothing to say.
- —Arthur Balfour, British politician (about Herbert Asquith)
- Wikipedia is the first place I go when I'm looking for knowledge... or when I want to create some.
- —Stephen Colbert
- I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- —Maya Angelou
- We're entitled to our own opinions, but we're not entitled to our own facts.
- —Sen Al Franken
- Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
- —Abraham Lincoln
- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- —Benjamin Franklin
- The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.
- —Sam Levenson
- We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
- —Alfred North Whitehead
- No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.
- —Michel de Montaigne
- There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
- —Kurt Vonnegut
- Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
- —Friedrich Nietzsche
- Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
- —Oscar Wilde
- I hope that when I die, people say about me, 'Boy, that guy sure owed me a lot of money.
- —Jack Handey
- If something is hard to use, I just don't use it as much.
- —Steve Krug
- You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.
- —Ben Franklin
- Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
- —Martin Fowler
- I object to violence because the good it does doesn't last long, but the evil lasts forever.
- —Ghandi
- War is a lot of things, and it's useless to pretend that exciting isn't one of them. It's insanely eciting.
- —Sebastian Junger
- Combat isn't where you might die--it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living.
- —Sebastian Junger
- Nobody should be allowed to be famous until they're 30.
- —Sam Rockwell (actor)
- Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
- —Bob Marley
- I'm a professional first and I work for this company second.
- —Dave Miller, VP of SQA, FedEx
- Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
- —Aristotle
- Service to others is the price we pay for our time on this planet.
- —Tony Curtis
- Testing proves a programmer's failure. Debugging is the programmer's vindication.
- —Boris Beizer
- Second law: The complexity barrier. Software complexity (and therefore that of bugs) grows to the limits of our ability to manage that complexity.
- —Boris Beizer
- First law: The pesticide paradox. Every method you use to prevent or find bugs leaves a residue of subtler bugs against which those methods are ineffective.
- —Boris Beizer
- Extra features were once considered desirable. We now recognize that "free" features are rarely free. Any increase in generality that does not contribute to reliability, modularity, maintainability, and robustness should be suspected.
- —Boris Beizer
- Programmers are responsible for software quality - quality in their own work, quality in the products that incorporate their work, and quality at the interfaces between components. Quality has never been and will never be tested in. The responsibility is both moral and professional.
- —Boris Beizer
- A design remedy that prevents bugs is always preferable to a test method that discovers them.
- —Boris Beizer
- A test that reveals a bug has succeeded, not failed.
- —Boris Beizer
- More than the act of testing, the act of designing tests is one of the best bug preventers known. The thinking that must be done to create a useful test can discover and eliminate bugs before they are coded - indeed, test-design thinking can discover and eliminate bugs at every stage in the creation of software, from conception to specification, to design, coding and the rest.
- —Boris Beizer
- Bugs lurk in corners and congregate at boundaries.
- —Boris Beizer
- In programming, it's often the buts in the specification that kill you.
- —Boris Beizer
- Forget that lone hacker image if you still cherish it. And if contemporary software engineering with its procedural structure bothers you, if the fast-tight algorithm is still the driving force in your designs - then get out! Find another domain, such as an R-and-D sandbox or an unreconstructed software shop, in which to play at programming.
- —Boris Beizer
- Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.
- —Ambrose Bierce
- To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.
- —Will Durant
- The worst, the hardest, moment of my life has become the rock that I reach out to when things go bad. If I survived that then, I can survive this now.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- —Albert Einstein
- The innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
- —Niccolo Machiavelli
- The hardest kind of cognitive dissonance is when facts contradict a belief we arrived at through opinions and prejudism.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Young people think quick thoughts. Old people think deep thoughts. Leaders think long thoughts.
- —Jeff Offutt
- In life, as in baseball, you don't have to be strong to hit a home run. You just have to hit it dead center.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Facts are good, I'm just not very good at them.
- —Richard Ford
- I don't read positive reviews because they don't compliment the book enough.
- —Richard Ford
- If you ignore quality, everything else is easy.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
- —Henri Louis Bergson
- In baseball if you succeed 3 out of 10 times you're a great player. Failing 7 out of 10 times is tough. Overcoming that failure isn't easy.
- —Ian Desmond
- Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.
- —Albert Einstein
- Old fashioned concepts of race are not only socially divisive, but scientifically wrong.
- —Dr. Spencer Wells, geneticist. In Journey of Man
- If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.
- —Mario Andretti
- The discipline of most of the students I am paid to teach is deplorable. They claim to forget their assignments, when in truth, they simply refused to do them. They do not want to learn, and I cannot instill that desire in them. Our nation is doomed.
- —Aristotle (384-322 BC)
- Engineers take ideas invented by quick thinkers and build products for slow thinkers.
- —Jeff Offutt
- If you achieve all your dreams, you didn't dream big enough.
- —Jeff Offutt
- If you're the only calm person, are you sure you know what's going on?
- —???
- Ad writers assume we all have room temperature IQs.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first be sure that you are not, in fact, surrounded by assholes.
- —William Gibson
- He uses adverbs the way a bad cook uses spices--if a few were good, then more were better.
- —Sam Clemens
- Ignorance always grows faster than knowledge.
Why? Because the more we know, the more we realize we don't know. Every new fact raises 10 questions.
- —Jeff Offutt
- The global economy imposes a tax on young people in the form of learning English.
- —Robert Laughlin
- Luck is the residue of design.
- —Branch Rickey
- I want a player with the guts not to fight back!
- —Branch Ricky (in the movie 42)
- Since we can't really measure what interests us, we begin to be interested in what we can measure.
- —Joel Westheimer
- The problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.
- —Robin Williams
- Don't let your weaknesses block your strengths.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge.
- —Lao Tzu
- Nature does not hurry, yet everything gets done.
- —Lao Tzu
- I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.
- —Richard Feynman
- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
- —Albert Einstein
- The only true failure in life is not trying.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Advice to all students: Don't try to get As. Try to learn it all.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Some coaches fill out lineups. Good coaches teach skill. The best coaches teach boys how to be men.
- —Jeff Offutt
- When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
- —Henry J. Kaiser
- Data is not the plural of anecdote.
- —Jeff Offutt
- When you stop learning, you start dying.
- —Jeff Offutt
- To be sucessful, you must first learn to lose.
- —Jeff Offutt
- We all die twice. First when our heart stops beating, and second when the last person who remembers us dies.
- —Jeff Offutt
- If you don't solve the problem before writing the code, you're creating more problems.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Staying young is simple. Every year, go somewhere new, do something new, meet someone new, learn something new.
- —Jeff Offutt
- History cannot be unlived. But if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
- —Maya Angelou
- Universities absolutely do NOT brainwash students to be liberal. Education inoculates citizens against fake news and lies.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Genius does what it must and talent does what it can.
- —Gregory Benford, Foundation Fear
- Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
- —Henry Ford
- Love learning more than you love being right. Love finding out more than you love knowing. Love rebounding more than you love scoring. Love improving more than you love achieving. Love growing more than you love being. Love helping more than you love having. Love teaching more than you love scolding and gloating. Love building more than you love bragging. Love walking the walk more than you love talking. Love leading more than you love controlling.
- —unknown
- Burnout is emotional investment without a return
- —unknown
- When you're tired, sometimes you need rest, and sometimes you need peace. It's important to know the difference.
- —Jeff Offutt
- The only way to get systemic change is to change the system
- —Jeff Offutt
- I had plans last weekend to fix all 5 bugs in my code. Only 9 left.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Talk less, teach more
- —Jeff Offutt
- Think more, publish less
- —Jeff Offutt
- Information is not knowledge. Quantity is not abundance. Wealth is not happiness
- —Jeff Offutt
- One of our biggest weaknesses is our fear of admitting weakness.
- —Jeff Offutt
- When the metric becomes the target, the metric becomes useless
- —unknown
- Prepping to fail: "I don't know how to do this and I'm scared that soon everyone else will know I don't." Prepping to succeed: "I don't know how to do this yet, but soon I will know how." Students are here to learn--Teachers need to remind them.
- —Jeff Offutt
- Leadership is action, not position. Action inspires, whereas position alone does not. A successful leader has integrity that is above reproach, truly listens, treats everyone with respect, and seeks to find consensus where many only see differences. Successful leadership requires an understanding that it?s all about the people you lead rather than about yourself.
- —Annie Anton
- Stress comes form working hard for something we don't care about. Passion comes from working hard for something we love.
- —unknown
- The most dangerous phrase in the language is ?we've always done it this way.?
- —Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
- One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.
- —Meghan O'Rourke, The Long Goodbye
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