Interesting Quotes


These are some quotes I have found interesting:



Philosophy


  • Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. (Isaac Asimov)

  • It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. (Charlie Munger)

  • If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged. (Cardinal Richelieu)

  • Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts. (Winston Churchil)

  • Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
    Then he is not omnipotent.
    Is he able, but not willing?
    Then he is malevolent.
    Is he both able and willing?
    Then whence cometh evil?
    Is he neither able nor willing?
    Then why call him God?"
    (Epicurus)

  • Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. (Philip K. Dick)

  • Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients. (Richard Branson)

  • Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people. (James Fitzjames Stephen)

  • You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. (Buckminster Fuller)

  • The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. (Elie Wiesel)

  • Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. (Apocryphal Mark Twain)



Politics


  • War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other. (Paul Valery)

  • A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices. (George Orwell)

  • The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. (Maximilien Robespierre)

  • There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." (Isaac Asimov)

  • There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens. (Leon Trotski)

  • We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. (Lenin)

  • We are not utopians, we do not indulge in "dreams" of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination; these anarchist dreams ... serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until human nature has changed. No, we want the socialist revolution with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot dispense with subordination, control and "managers." ... The united workers themselves ... will hire their own technicians, managers and bookkeepers, and pay them all, as, indeed, every state official, ordinary workmen's wages. (Lenin)

  • Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. (Lenin)

  • Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. (Lenin)

  • Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. (Sigmund Freud)

  • The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

  • Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect). (Mark Twain)



Computing


  • Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. (David Gelernter)

  • 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 Kernighan)

  • Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. (Brian Kernighan)

  • This device was not designed to secure you and give you privacy. This device was designed to do the opposite – to open up where you are, who you are with, who your contacts are – this is a spying device. (John McAfee about smartphones)




Reference


Wikiquote