Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! | |
A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally baffled. What is the reason for this?" The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the novice. "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from a corporation whose president codes in octal. -- J.N. Gray | |
Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know how to raise bail." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
Duty, n: What one expects from others. -- Oscar Wilde | |
FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14 Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck. | |
The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine. -- Ernest Rutherford, after he had split the atom for the first time | |
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be. -- Thomas Jefferson | |
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! | |
Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed. -- W.C. Bennett | |
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. -- Alexander Pope | |
Do more than anyone expects, and pretty soon everyone will expect more. | |
"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well." - Linus Torvalds |