Category: quotes

In response to this person’s bad dream, the feller I’m particularly keen on said:

“Perl is The Official Crack Monkey Language of the Internet.”

But they’re such happy little monkeys…

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

–Eleanor Roosevelt

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

–Ursula K. Le Guin

We must repudiate one of the two, either Christianity with its love of God and one’s neighbor, or the state with its armies and wars.
–Leo Tolstoy (1909)

Well. It’d be a start, anyhow.

In order to obtain and hold power a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft and cruelty.
–Leo Tolstoy

If a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.
–Woodrow Wilson

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot we must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
–Voltaire

Not only that, but apparently now many folks think you also must believe in God to believe in your country. I believe profoundly in freedom of belief, in the principle of the separation of church and state. The conservative trend in this country is frightening.

You do not have to believe in God. It doesn’t mean you don’t believe in good.

You do not have to abandon logic if you do believe in God. Many Christians I know think evolution isn’t too tricky a notion for their God to have thought up.

You do not have to recite the pledge, any pledge. Think for yourself. Express your beliefs. Keep your mind open.

Enforced patriotism isn’t true patriotism. Mandatory homage isn’t real tribute.

“Dick Cheney’s Primer on the Constitution:

So what’s it called if during war you criticize the President for any reason?

Treason.

And how long does this war go on (and this is where this theory’s really pretty clever)?

Forever.”

– Calvin Trillin

Scared by that? It’s nothing compared to the threat of war between two nuclear powers. We must all prevent war. Now. Before it’s too late.

The only way to live humanly – still – is in resistance to war. The prevention of war, in the nuclear age, must be a central purpose of every person’s life. Scientists, physicians, lawyers, bishops, mothers, students, writers – where are you? We must remember what we learned already, but forgot; what the leaders of India and Pakistan are showing us again: If we human beings leave this problem to governments, we are doomed.

[Another great quote and a call to action courtesy of Larry]

Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it.
–Charles Caleb Colton

[Thanks to Larry for this & the prior quote.]

“A picture is an intermediate something between a thought and a thing.”

–Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Seems like you could say the same thing of software.