Computers
Mathematics
Education
Philosophy and Miscellany
"Program for beauty."
- Don Knuth
"In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our
culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in
the cultural history of mankind."
- Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1972 (Deceased 2002)
"If word travels any slower than the speed of light now, it only means we're not
paying attention."
- Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you
do, it blows away your whole leg."
- Bjarne Stroustrup
"C++ also supports the notion of friends: cooperative classes that are permitted
to see each other's private parts."
- Grady Booch (in "Object-Oriented Design with Applications," 1994, page 54)
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded
as a criminal offense."
- Edsger W. Dijkstra
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will
eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know
this is not true."
- Robert Wilensky ( Generation Terrorists)
"Computers aren't intelligent; they only think they are!"
- Anonymous
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. "
- Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. "
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"640K ought to be enough for anybody. "
- Bill Gates (1955-), in 1981
"Grove giveth and Gates taketh away. "
- Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) on the trend of hardware speedups not being able to
keep up with software demands
"Don't lose your head."
- Venu Dasigi (in the context of linked lists)
"Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe."
- Galileo Galilei
"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into thereoms."
- Paul Erdos
"You have no respect for logic. I have no respect for people who have no
respect for logic."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Twins"
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
- Steven Wright
"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten."
- B. F. Skinner
"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."
- Malcolm Forbes
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
- Aristotle
"We prepare them [students] for the first AND the last jobs in their
careers."
- Lisa A. Rossbacher (President, Southern Polytechnic State University), 1998, commenting
on the "hard and soft" skills graduates need.
"They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched
with an Anti-Cheating spell."
- J.K. Rowling, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a
'C', the idea must be feasible. "
- A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper
proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found
Federal Express Corp.)
"Chairing an academic department is a science of interruptions."
- Professor Joel Fowler, Chair of Mathematics, Southern Polytechnic State
University
"Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this
time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is
shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure
knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been
the history of progress in America."
- Hillary Rodham Clinton, June 07, 2008
"A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build."
- Fred Brooks
"Leadership is the process of creating an environment in which people become
empowered."
- Gerald Weinberg, in Becoming a Technical Leader - An Organic
Problem-Solving Approach.
"Success is not a step; it's a process."
- Anonymous
"Today's world is characterized by cooperation, not competition."
- Anonymous
"The seven social sins: politics without principle, wealth without work, pleasure
without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science
without humanity, and worship without sacrifice."
- Mahatma Gandhi, 1925
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"We do not inherit the world from our ancestors; we borrow it from our
children."
- Anonymous, Native American Saying
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade: It bleeds the hand that holds
it."
- Rabindranath Tagore
"Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude."
- Ralph Marston
"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
- Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be
counted. "
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. "
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"Pro is to con as progress is to congress."
- ???
"Speech is silvern, but silence is golden."
- The Mother
"I am not young enough to know everything. "
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"...all men are created equal..."
- Declaration of Independence
"Too many women
In too many countries
Speak the same language.
Of silence..."
- Anasuya Sengupta, as quoted by Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Living History,
chapter entitled, Silence is not spoken here
"To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed
social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
That is to have succeeded."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve
immortality through not dying. "
- Woody Allen (1935-)
"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have
one. "
- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)
"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce
Satan.
"When you first came to this world, the world rejoiced and you cried; now live
your life in doing such deeds that when you leave this world, the world will cry for you
and you will leave it laughing."
- Tulasidas
"Be a jack of all trades and a master of at least one."
- Venu Dasigi (when about 17)