“He goes beyond the limits of color and the laws of natural perspective.”● Wm. Quinn, in “The Art of Artspeak: Be Sophisticated” |
“None of the programs in this monograph, needless to say, has
been tested on a machine.”● Edsger W. Dijkstra, in A Discipline of Programming |
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“...the action of thought is excited by the irritation of doubt, and ceases
when belief is attained; so that the production of belief is the sole
function of thought.” ● Charles S. Peirce, in “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” |
“There seems to be a sort of progress in awareness, through the
stages of which every man—and especially every psychiatrist and
every patient—must move, some persons progressing further through
these stages than others. One starts by blaming the identified
patient for his idiosyncrasies and symptoms. Then one discovers
that these symptoms are a response to—or an effect of—what others
have done; and the blame shifts from the identified patient to
the etiological figure. Then, one discovers perhaps that these
figures feel a guilt for the pain which they have caused, and one
realizes that when they claim this guilt they are identifying
themselves with god. After all, they did not, in general, know
what they were doing, and to claim guilt for their acts would be
to claim omniscience. At this point one reaches a more general
anger, that what happens to people should not happen to dogs, and
that what people do to each other the lower animals could never
devise. Beyond this, there is, I think, a stage which I can only
dimly envisage, where pessimism and anger are replaced by
something else—perhaps humility. And from this stage onward to
whatever stages there may be, there is loneliness.”● Gregory Bateson, in “Language and Psychotherapy” |
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“Ta’ e’ ku’ yu’uch’ul.” ● Yucatec Mayan |
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“If,” say we with much circumlocution, “the course of Nature
followed the lines we say it did, then, in short, it did.”
That is the sum of our argument. ● William Bateson, 1894; cited in “A Duck Folded in Half,” London Review of Books, 19 June 1997 (Review of Before the Backbone: Views on the Origins of the Vertebrates, by Henry Gee) |
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“The tool most required to build the tool required is the tool
required.” ● Van Laningham’s Law |
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“In general, mass production allows the designer more freedom
of choice than intermediate or hybrid methods ... In hybrid
production it is always cheaper not to exploit to the full the
capabilities of a machine, and usually cheaper still to use the wrong
machine.” ● David Pye, in The Nature and Aesthetics of Design |
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“Clyde, trash the caddy.” ● Clint Eastwood, in Any Which Way You Can |
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“Indeed, when I design my killer language, the identifiers “foo” and “bar”
will be reserved words, never used, and not even mentioned in the reference
manual. Any program using one will simply dump core without comment.
Multitudes will rejoice.” ● Tim Peters, on the Python Mailing List |
“Some people have told me they don’t think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never
seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They’d be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.”● Linus Torvalds |
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“He that stelles thes boke he shalbe hanked apon an hoke behend the kechen door.” ● Inscription in an English Book of Hours, in a private collection in Denmark; cited in “The One and Only Book,” by Christopher de Hamel, New York Review of Books Volume LIV, No. 2 (February 15, 2007): 44. (Review of Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570, by Eamon Duffy.) |
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