Some quotes that I find amusing or interesting:
On the subjects of Learning and Education:
- We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking to crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach.
(Viola Spolin, born 1911)
- Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
(Socrates, 470-399 B.C.)
- My first boss at Bell Labs - and one of the smartest people I have ever known - once confided a terrible secret: he felt overrated. As he spoke, I realized we shared exactly the same feeling. I could readily picture me saying those same things about myself. 'The people around me think I'm smarter than I really am... They don't suspect that I learn things more slowly than they do and less fundamentally... When I listen to a presentation on something new, the only thing that keeps me from appearing stupid is not asking questions about things that others obviously already understand (I know they understand it because they're not asking any questions)... The things I know about are really easier to understand, almost simple by comparison to my colleagues' areas of expertise.' Since then, I've found that such monologues are common indeed.
(Nobel Prize-winning physicist Arno Penzias)
Experience & Decision Making:
- There are great rewards for those who pick the high hard roads, but those rewards are hidden by years.
(Richard Bach)
- Good judgement comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgement (unknown).
- Do not mistake incompetence for malevolence. (paraphrased from Arthur C. Clarke - 3001)
- Wise men learn more from fools, than fools from the wise. (Fortune Cookie).
On Computer Science & Programming:
- Dennis Ritchie on C... "a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language".
- About debugging.... "The sooner you start coding your program, the longer it's going to take." (Henry Ledgard)
- Computers, like microscopes, are instruments of empirical science. (Ackley & Littman, 1991)
- 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)
- If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. (Edsger Dijkstra)
- Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. (Brian W. Kernighan)
On the subject of idiocy!
- There's no system foolproof enough to defeat a sufficiently great fool. (Edward Teller)
- If you invent an idiot proof piece of software...Someone will invent a better idiot! (unknown)
- Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool. (unknown)
- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits! (bumper sticker)
- If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done? (unknown)
- I'm trying to look at things from your point of view, but I just can't get my head that far up my ass. (unknown)
- Everyone has a right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege. (unknown)
- Deja Moo is the feeling that you've heard this bullshit before. (unknown)