Quotes

Summary: A sample quotations file for the Cookbook.RandomQuote page
Categories: Administration

This is a sample quotations file for the Cookbook.RandomQuote page. Each quotation is delimited by anchors, which can also be used to identify the quotes in an (:include:) markup.

True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to others, not by how much you can coerce others to do what you want.

Larry Wall Creator of Perl

Do, or do not. There is no 'try'.

Yoda

Linus' Law: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.

Eric S. Raymond The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Perspective is worth 50 IQ points.

Alan Kay

Las Vegas is a SimCity game gone horribly wrong.

Douglas Coupland Microserfs

Most men would rather die, than think. Many do.

Bertrand Russell

Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

attributed to Vincent Cerf [1]

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad man.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) [2]

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Mahatma Gandhi

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

-- Gandalf, J.R.R. Tolkien Fellowship of the Ring

I can do it more quickly if you don't keep asking me questions.

Aya

This place stinks like a pair of armoured trousers after the Hundred Years War. Baldrick, have you been eating dung again?

Blackadder

I'm as poor as a church mouse that's just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese.

Blackadder

Percy: Only this morning in the courtyard I saw a horse with two heads and two bodies.
Blackadder

Baldrick: I was wondering if I might have the afternoon off??
Blackadder: Of course not. Who do you think you are? Wat Tyler? You can have the afternoon off when you die. Not before.
Blackadder

Red Baron: How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you it is the basis of an entire culture.

Blackadder

Oh, God. Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more.

Blackadder

Queenie: And me, did you miss me, Edmund?
Edmund: Madam, life without you was like...a broken pencil.
Queenie: Explain...?
Edmund: Pointless.
Blackadder

Queenie: I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant.
Blackadder

Edmund: Baldrick, your brain is like the four-headed, man-eating haddock fish beast of Aberdeen.
Baldrick: In what way?
Edmund: It doesn't exist
Blackadder

Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on a harpsichord singing 'subtle plans are here again'.

Blackadder

I fear the words "I have a cunning plan" are rapidly marching towards this conversation with ill-deserved confidence.

Blackadder

Melchett: Ah, Blackadder. Started talking to yourself, I see.
Edmund: Yes...it's the only way I can be assured of intelligent conversation.
Blackadder

Right, good morning team. My name is Edmund Blackadder and I'm the new Minister in charge of religious genocide. Now, if you play straight with me you'll find me a considerate employer, but cross me and you'll find that under this playful boyish exterior beats the heart of a ruthless sadistic maniac.

Blackadder's induction speech as Lord High Executioner

And in Genoa, 'tis now the fashion to pin a live frog to the shoulder braid, stand in a bucket and go "bibble" at passers by.

Blackadder makes small-talk with the Queen

Sir Walter Raleigh: You'd never dare. Why, 'round the Cape, the rain beats down so hard it makes your head bleed!
Edmund: So, some sort of hat is probably in order

Blackadder

Percy: I'd like to see the Spaniard who could make his way past ME!
Edmund: Well, go to Spain. There are millions of them.
Blackadder

The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Perce ?

Blackadder

Melchett: Well, I'm sure we all remember the shame and embarrassment of the visit of the King of Austria when Blackadder was found wandering naked among the corridors of Hampton Court singing, "I'm Merlin, The Happy Pig!"
Blackadder

Nursie: Oh, that's another good idea. You're so clever today, you better be careful your foot doesn't fall off.
Queenie: Does that happen when you have lots of brilliant ideas? Your foot falls off?
Nursie: It certainly does. My brother; he had this brilliant idea of cutting his toenails with a scythe, and his foot fell off...
Blackadder

Queenie: Oh, Edmund... I do love it when you get cross. Sometimes I think about having you executed just to see the expression on your face...
Blackadder

Oh, God, God, God. What on Earth was I drinking last night? My head feels like there's a Frenchman living in it.

Blackadder

Ludwig: You find yourself amusing, Herr Blackadder?
Edmund: I try not to fly in the face of public opinion...
Blackadder

Baldrick, that is by far and away, and without a shadow of doubt, the worst and most contemptible plan in the history of the universe. On the other hand, I hear the sound of disembowelling cutlasses being sharpened, and it's the only plan we've got, so if you will excuse me, gentlemen...

Blackadder

Mrs Miggins: Bonjour, monsieur - it's French.
Edmund: So is eating frogs, cruelty to geese and urinating in the street, but that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us.

Blackadder

Doesn't anyone know? We hate the French! We fight wars against them! Did all those men die in vain on the field at Agincourt? Was the man who burned Joan of Arc simply wasting good matches?

Blackadder

Edmund: Do you speak English?
The Comte de Frou Frou: A little...
Edmund: Yes, when you say "a little," what exactly do you mean? I mean, can we talk? Or are we going to spend the rest of the afternoon asking each other the way to the beach in very loud voices?
Blackadder

No he won't, Baldrick. Either I think up an idea, or, tomorrow, we die – which, Baldrick, I have to tell you, I have no intention of doing, because I want to be young and wild, and then I want to be middle-aged and rich, and then I want to be old and annoy people by pretending that I'm deaf.

Blackadder

Edmund: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yeah, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron.
Blackadder

Edmund: Well, saddle my horse then.
Baldrick: What d'you think you've been eating for the last two months?
Blackadder

Edmund: Well, go out into the street and hire me a horse.
Baldrick: Hire you a horse? For ninepence? On Jewish New Year in the rain? A bare fortnight after the dreaded horse plague of old London Town? With the blacksmith's strike in its fifteenth week and the Dorset horse fetishists fair tomorrow?
Blackadder

He's mad. He's mad. He's madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of last year's Mr Madman competition.

Blackadder

Edmund: Ah! Good day, cousin McAdder. I trust you are well.
McAdder: Aye, well enough.
Edmund: And Morag?
McAdder: She bides fine.
Edmund: And how stands that mighty army, the clan McAdder?
McAdder: They're both well.
Blackadder

General Melchett: That's the spirit, George. If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

Blackadder

Firing squad sergeant: Is there any particular area you'd like us to go for? We can aim anywhere...
Edmund: ...Well, in that case...just above the top of my head might be a good spot...

Blackadder

Darling: In short, a German spy is giving away every one of our battle plans.
Melchett: You look surprised, Blackadder.
Edmund: I certainly am, sir. I didn't realise we had any battle plans.
Blackadder

George: If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do ?
Edmund: Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area.
Blackadder

I think I'll write my tombstone - Here lies Edmund Blackadder, and he's bloody annoyed.

Blackadder

The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd.

Blackadder

I've got a plan so cunning, you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Blackadder

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte

My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right.

Ashleigh Brilliant

Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.

George Burns (1896-1996)

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones.

John Cage (1912-1992)

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)

Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.

Chinese proverb

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.

Chinese proverb

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

If you are going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do.

Harold Coffin

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

James R. Cook

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C.

Cookie Monster

Las Vegas is a SimCity game gone horribly wrong.

Douglas Coupland, Microserfs

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.

W. Edwards Deming

It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and THEN do your best.

W. Edwards Deming

Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.

Sir James Dewar, Scientist (1877-1925)

63% of all statistics are made up... including this one.

Dilbert

Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.

Dilbert

All of your co-workers are fools. You must learn to pity and tolerate them.

Dilbert

An optimist is simply a pessimist with no job experience.

Dilbert

If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.

Dilbert

I'll be happy to make these unnecessary changes to this irrelevant document.

Dilbert

Let's form proactive synergy restructuring teams.

Dilbert

Stupidity is like nuclear power; it can be used for good or evil.

Dilbert

Technical people respond to questions in three ways: It is technically impossible (meaning: I don't feel like doing it); It depends (meaning: abandon all hope of a useful answer); The data bits are flexed through a collectimizer which strips the flow-gate arrays into virtual message elements (meaning: I don't know).

Dilbert

The entire economic system depends on the fact that people are willing to do unpleasant things in return for money.

Dilbert

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

Dilbert

There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are known as "nutty methods." Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time."

Dilbert

There are two essential rules to management. One, the customer is always right; and two, they must be punished for their arrogance.

Dilbert

There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.

Dilbert

We must develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learnings.

Dilbert

When did ignorance become a point of view?

Dilbert

Work is for losers. A winner says 'That's on my list' and never commits to a deadline.

Dilbert

Your brain is like your stomach in the sense that if it's empty, you're willing to put anything in there to fill it up.

Dilbert

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

Walt Disney

I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

The important thing is never to stop questioning.

Albert Einstein

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot (1819-1880)

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

Anatole France (1844-1924)

A jury consists of twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer.

Robert Frost

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

[to the cow] Wow, you have got a great pair of legs! In fact, she's got two great pairs of legs!

The Great Gonzo

Kermit, cancel my bread impersonation act! They didn't deliver my poppy seeds. You wouldn't want me to walk out there NAKED, would you?

Gonzo

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

Linus' Law: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.

Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar

When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

All I know is I'm not a Marxist.

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Charles Mingus

Of those who say nothing, few are silent.

Thomas Neill

The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from.

C. Northcote Parkinson

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

C. Northcote Parkinson

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Plato (429-347 BC)

Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

attributed to Vincent Cerf [3]

Nobody in Rugby should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.

Jono Gibbs - Chiefs

I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes.

Rodney So'ialo - Hurricanes - on University

You guys line up alphabetically by height, and you guys pair up in groups of three, then line up in a circle.

Colin Cooper – Hurricanes head coach

I can't really remember the names of the clubs that we went to.

Chris Masoe (Hurricanes) on whether he had visited the Pyramids during his visit to Egypt.

He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning regardless of what time it is.

Colin Cooper on Paul Tito

It's basically the same, just darker.

Kevin Senio (Auckland), on Night Rugby vs Day Games

I told him, 'Son, what is it with you. Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'David, I don't know and I don't care.'

David Nucifora (Auckland) talking about Troy Flavell

I want to reach for 150 or 200 points this season, whichever comes first.

David Holwell (Hurricanes) when asked about the upcoming season

Andy Ellis - the 21 year old, who turned 22 a few weeks ago.

Murray Mexted - ex Wellington player

Colin has done a bit of mental arithmetic with a calculator.

Ma’a Nonu

He scored that try after only 22 seconds - totally against the run of play.

Murray Mexted

We actually got the winning try three minutes from the end but then they scored.

Phil Waugh – Warratah

I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.

Jerry Collins

That kick was absolutely unique, except for the one before it which was identical.

Tony Brown

I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.

Tana Umaga

Sure there have been injuries and deaths in rugby - but none of them serious.

Doc Mayhew

If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.

Anton Oliver

I would not say he (Rico Gear) is the best left winger in the Super 14, but there are none better.

Murray Mexted

I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat.

Ewan McKenzie

Murray Deaker: Have you ever thought of writing your autobiography? Tana Umaga: On what?

Well, either side could win it, or it could be a draw.

Murray Mexted

Strangely, in slow motion replay, the ball seemed to hang in the air for even longer.

Murray Mexted

One who sits between two chairs may easily fall down.

Proverb from Romania and Russia

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana (1863-1952)

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1775)

Education is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.

Pete Seeger

You must believe in free will; there is no choice.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.

Alvin Toffler

All my life I've wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific.

Jane Wagner/Lily Tomlin (1939- )

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

The person who has no opinion will seldom be wrong.

Unattributed

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

The secret of being tiresome is to tell everything.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

Unknown

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong, without comment.

T. H. White

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

Every really new idea looks crazy at first.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

A true friend stabs you in the front.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

As yet, Bernard Shaw hasn't become prominent enough to have any enemies, but none of his friends like him.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I am not young enough to know everything.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I can resist everything except temptation.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Of course I have played outdoor games. I once played dominoes in an open air cafe in Paris.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, by each let this be heard, some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

Powerful you have become, Dooku. The Dark Side I sense in you.

Yoda to Count Dooku

When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good, you will not.

Yoda

Luke: I can’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.

Yoda

Grave danger you are in. Impatient you are

Yoda

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Yoda

Always in motion is the future.

Yoda

Around the survivors a perimeter create.

Yoda

Size matters not.

Yoda

May the force be with you.

Yoda

Blind we are, if creation of this clone army we could not see.

Yoda

A Jedi's strength flows from the Force.

Yoda

Help you I can, yes.

Yoda

Strong am I with the force.

Yoda

Agree with you the council does. Your apprentice Skywalker will be.

Yoda

Always two there are, no more, no less: a master and an apprentice.

Yoda

Lost a planet Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing.

Yoda

There are two secrets to success in life:

  1. Never tell anyone everything you know.
  2. .....................................................

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing

John Powell

Some people would rather die than think

Bertrand Russell

Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the different results

Benjamin Franklin

 The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.
Andrew S. Tannenbaum

640K ought to be enough for anybody.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, 1981

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

B. F. Skinner

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

George Pompidou

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

Archibald Putt

For years there has been a theory that millions of monkeys typing at random on millions of typewriters would reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. The Internet has proven this theory to be untrue.

Anonymous

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.

Andy Rooney

In the old days, people robbed stagecoaches and knocked off armoured trucks. Now they're knocking off servers.

Richard Power

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943

If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.

Scott Adams

In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would have taken many men many months to equal it.

Anonymous

If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee. That will do them in.

Bradley's Bromide

At some point...we must have faith in the intelligence of the end user.

Anonymous

There are two major products that came out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.

Jeremy S. Anderson

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

Elbert Hubbard

Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer, deserves to be.

David Thornburg

Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software.

Anonymous

Save early, save often.

Alwin Lee and everyone else who uses Microsoft Word

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Carl Sagan

If you tried to read every document on the web, then for each day's effort you would be a year further behind in your goal.

Anonymous

The last good thing written in C++ was the Pachelbel Canon.

Jerry Olson

Everything that can be invented has been invented.

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents,1899

Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.

Louis Gerstner, CEO, IBM

Any science or technology which is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.

Gregory Benford

Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.

Anonymous

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Thomas Edison

Get your feet off my desk, get out of here, you stink, and we're not going to buy your product.

Joe Keenan, President of Atari, in 1976 responding to Steve Jobs' offer to sell him rights to the new personal computer he and Steve Wozniak developed

The Internet is a great way to get on the net.

Senator Bob Dole

Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons.

Popular Mechanics, 1949

From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, US Navy

Technology is like fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes.

Andrew Heller, IBM

How could this be a problem in a country where we have Intel and Microsoft?

Al Gore on Y2K

The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.

Linus Torvalds

To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

Linus Torvalds

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

Ken Olson (President of Digital Equipment Corporation) at the Convention of the World Future Society in Boston in 1977

A good programmer is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.

Doug Linder

"Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing."

J S Mill, On Liberty

"Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable."

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

Maria Robinson

"There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction"

Winston Churchill

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

Peter F. Drucker

"You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete."

R. Buckminster Fuller

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."

Robert F. Kennedy

When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown.

Hugh Prather

Mistakes are merely steps up the ladder.

Paul J. Meyer

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Mahatma Gandhi

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Pearl Buck

There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons.

Denis Waitley

If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.

F. Wikzek

Mistakes fail in their mission of helping the person who blames them on the other fellow.

Henry S. Haskins