Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" | |
I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting. I shall fall, Like a bright exhalation in the evening And no man see me more. -- Shakespeare | |
You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" | |
I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new science of data processing), c. 1957 | |
The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. -- Winston Churchill | |
Mr. DePree believes participative capitalism is the wave of the future. The U.S. work force, he believes, "more and more demands to be included in the capitalist system and if we don't find ways to get the capitalist system to be an inclusive system rather than the exclusive system it has been, we're all in deep trouble. If we don't find ways to begin to understand that capitalism's highest potential lies in the common good, not in the individual good, then we're risking the system itself." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
Renning's Maxim: Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying. | |
FORTUNE'S FAVORITE RECIPES: #8 Christmas Rum Cake 1 or 2 quarts rum 1 tbsp. baking powder 1 cup butter 1 tsp. soda 1 tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. lemon juice 2 large eggs 2 cups brown sugar 2 cups dried assorted fruit 3 cups chopped English walnuts Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Good, isn't it? Now select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It must be just right. Be sure the rum is of the highest quality. Pour one cup of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric mixer, beat one cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of tugar and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the rum teh absolutely highest quality. Sample another cup. Open second quart as necessary. Add 2 orge laggs, 2 cups of fried druit and beat untill high. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters, just pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the rum again, checking for toncisticity. Next sift 3 cups of baking powder, a pinch of rum, a seaspoon of toda and a cup of pepper or salt (it really doesn't matter). Sample some more. Sift 912 pint of lemon juice. Fold in schopped butter and strained chups. Add bablespoon of brown gugar, or whatever color you have. Mix mell. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees and rake until poothtick comes out crean. | |
A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 | |
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry. -- Bertrand Russell | |
Those who sweat in flames of hell, Leaden eared, some thought their bowels Here's the reason that they fell: Lispeth forth the sweetest vowels. While on earth they prayed in SAS, These they offered up in praise PL/1, or other crass, Thinking all this fetid haze Vulgar tongue. A rapsody sung. Some the lord did sorely try Jabber of the mindless horde Assembling all their pleas in hex. Sequel next did mock the lord Speech as crabbed as devil's crable Slothful sequel so enfangled Hex that marked on Tower Babel Its speaker's lips became entangled The highest rung. In his bung. Because in life they prayed so ill And offered god such swinish swill Now they sweat in flames of hell Sweat from lack of APL Sweat dung! | |
You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession. | |
The highest good is like water. Water give life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao. In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. In daily life, be competent. In action, be aware of the time and the season. No fight: No blame. | |
The very highest if barely known. Then comes that which people know and love. Then that which is feared, Then that which is despised. Who does not trust enough will not be trusted. When actions are performed Without unnecessary speech, People say, "We did it!" | |
The wise student hears of the Tao and practices it diligently. The average student hears of the Tao and gives it thought now and again. The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud. If there were no laughter, the Tao would not be what it is. Hence it is said: The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard; The highest Virtue seems empty; Great purity seems sullied; A wealth of Virtue seems inadequate; The strength of Virtue seems frail; Real Virtue seems unreal; The perfect square has no corners; Great talents ripen late; The highest notes are hard to hear; The greatest form has no shape; The Tao is hidden and without name. The Tao alone nourishes and brings everything to fulfillment. | |
Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know. Keep your mouth closed. Guard your senses. Temper your sharpness. Simplify your problems. Mask your brightness. Be at one with the dust of the Earth. This is primal union. He who has achieved this state Is unconcerned with friends and enemies, With good and harm, with honor and disgrace. This therefore is the highest state of man. | |
The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of oneself but of one's ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach it and are delighted. -- Nietzsche | |
I mean, well, if it were not for Linux I might be roaming the streets looking for drugs or prostitutes or something. Hannu and Linus have my highest admiration (apple polishing mode off). -- Phil Lewis, plewis@nyx.nyx.net | |
/* This bit of chicanery makes a unary function followed by a parenthesis into a function with one argument, highest precedence. */ -- Larry Wall in toke.c from the perl source code | |
"These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!" "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!" "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP out of MEGATON MAN!" |