Only More So

In today's online world, what your mother told you is true, only more so: people really can judge you by your friends.

-- Harold Abelson, MIT computer science professor, on personal information that can be gleaned from social networking sites, NY Times, 17 March 2010

Not Equal

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

-- Douglas Adams (1952-2001), British author and satirist, The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

Walking And Bicycling

The DOT policy is to incorporate safe and convenient walking and bicycling facilities into transportation projects. Every transportation agency, including DOT, has the responsibility to improve conditions and opportunities for walking and bicycling and to integrate walking and bicycling into their transportation systems. Because of the numerous individual and community benefits that walking and bicycling provide -- including health, safety, environmental, transportation, and quality of life -- transportation agencies are encouraged to go beyond minimum
standards to provide safe and convenient facilities for these modes.

-- Secretary Ray LaHood, in the US Department of Transportation Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation Regulations and Recommendations, 11 March 2010

When

We only think when we are confronted with problems.

-- John Dewey (1859-1952), American philosopher, educator

Books

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never our own.

-- Julian Barnes (19 January 1946-) British novelist and short story writer, Flaubert's Parrot, p 168

No Moral Precept

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

-- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784), French philosopher and chief editor of the historic project to produce L'Encyclopidie, as quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (1980) by Mary Collison, Robert L. Collison, p. 235

Amateurs

Software is an incredibly young discipline. Everything in software is so new and so frequently being reinvented that almost nobody really knows what they are doing. It is amateurs who make all the progress.

-- Jeff Atwood, 29 May 2008, Coding Horror Blog,
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001124.html

Crosses The Line

When it works, it's amazingly impactful, but when it doesn't work, it's not only creepy but off-putting. What a marketer might think is endearing, by knowing a little bit about you, actually crosses the line pretty easily.

-- Tim Hanlon of Riverview Lane Associates of Chicago, on advertising aimed at Facebook users, New York Times, 4 March 2010

Worst Sin

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish literary critic, playwright and essayist, 1925 Nobel Laureate in Literature, The Devil's Disciple, Act II (1901)

Aladdin's Lamp

Yes! Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

-- Lord George Gordon (Noel) Byron, 6th Baron Byron 22 January 1788 - 19 April 1824), Anglo-Scottish poet and leading figure in Romanticism, Don Juan (canto XII, st. 12), 1823

What People Want

When you're young, you look at television and think, "There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down." But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

-- Steve Jobs (24 February 1955-), Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc., Interview in WIRED magazine, February 1996

Wolves

We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.

-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third US president, architect and author, in a letter to Edward Carrington

Another Flaw

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

Ethics v Morals

Ethics versus Morals. Ethical behavior may be defined as acting after thinking about what would produce the greatest good for the greatest number affected. Morals are a codification of prior ethical decisions, simplified into easy-to-grasp rules. Morals exist because most people are very uncomfortable with the uncertainties of attempting to figure out what the right course of action might be, and most and are reluctant to take responsibility for having made mistakes. Being ethical means making decisions based on inadequate data and acting anyway. Ethical actions frequently work out badly; the actor has no one to blame for the results but themselves. Acting ethically while still desiring certainties means being uncomfortable. Moral acts also often work out badly. The apparent advantage to being moral is that when a moral act works out badly no one is to blame because the actor did what was supposed to be done. Being moral is comfortable because a moral person always knows what should be done, did it and is not to blame for the outcomes.

-- Steve Solomon, "The Wisdom of Solomon",
www.soilandhealth.org/05steve'sfolder/0502wisdomofsol.html

Theater

It's a kind of theater. Sometimes, a car will fly by in the air.

-- Juma Gul, who works beside a mountainous stretch of the Afghan national highway that is famous for accidents, New York Times, 8 February 2010

Any Little Change

Anything you put in that book, any little change you make, has huge implications not only for psychiatry but for pharmaceutical marketing, research, for the legal system, for who's considered to be normal or not, for who's considered disabled.

-- Dr. Michael First, professor of psychiatry at Columbia, on proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, New York Times, 10 February 2010

Something Different

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010


-- Closing paragraphs of a blog entry posted by Joseph Andrew Stack III just before he crashed an aircraft into the Austin office of the IRS, 18 February 2010

A House Of One Room

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make -- leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone -- we all dwell in a house of one room -- the world with the firmament for its roof -- and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

-- John Muir (1838-1914) American environmentalist, naturalist, traveler, writer, and scientist, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir (1938)

Thing That Unifies

The one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve.

-- Jacques Barzun (b. 1907-11-30), French-born American scholar, historian, critic, teacher and editor, Classic, Romantic, Modern (1961), ch. I: Romanticism -- Dead or Alive?"

Fastball

Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.

-- August Wilson (1945-2005), American playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner, "Fences", Act I, scene 1, character Troy Maxson, a former Negro League slugger

Act

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

-- William James (1842-1910), American Psychologist, Professor, Author

A Moral

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

-- Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), (1832 - 1898), British author, mathematician, Anglican clergyman, and logician, the Mock Turtle speaking to Alice, in Alice in Wonderland

Paranoiac In Reverse

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

-- J. D. Salinger (1 January 1919 - 27 January 2010), American author, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

RIP Howard Zinn

If those in charge of our society -- politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television -- can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

-- Howard Zinn (24 August 1924 - 27 January 2010), American historian, political scientist, playwright and activist, Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991): "American Ideology"

A Very Small Stage

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996), astronomer and writer

Compassion

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

-- Dalai Lama Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1935-), quoted in Meditations for Living In Balance: Daily Solutions for People Who Do Too Much (2000) by Anne Wilson Schaef

Text

I need a better word than unprecedented or amazing to describe what's happened with the text-message program.

-- Red Cross spokesman Roger Lowe, on a campaign that has brought in $22 million in pledges since the earthquake in Haiti, New York Times, 19 January 2010

There Comes A Time

Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?" But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never Be Afraid

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

-- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), civil-rights leader

No Bonus

$500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus.

-- Wall Street compensation consultant James Reda on Feb. 3, 2009, giving the New York Times a good example of just how totally out of touch the super-rich really are, Salon.com, "The decade's top 10 quotations", 1 January 2010

Quake

I'm still looking to understand the magnitude of the event.

-- Haitian President Rene Preval, 14 January 2010, on the 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti

Getting On Top

He just needs a little more help getting on top of the plane now.

-- Sue Pitham, on the stroke that has slowed down 89-year-old Tom Lackey, who took up wing-walking over the English Channel at 160 miles an hour, New York Times, 8 January 2010

Sufficient Conclusions

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

-- Samuel Butler, Notebooks, Ch 1, "Life", 9

Suffer A Little

If you want your children to have a peaceful life, let them suffer a little hunger and a little coldness.

-- Chinese Proverb

Which Is This?

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

-- Zora Neale Hurston (1891-01-07 - 1960-01-28), American folklorist and author, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937)

Being Methodical

He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.

-- G. K. Chesterton, The Fad of the Fisherman (1922)

The Artist's Business

It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

-- Romain Rolland (1866 - 1944), French writer, 1915 Nobel Laureate in Literature

Look It Over Carefully

After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.

-- Alfred Edward Perlman (1902-1982), American railway executive

Enough Is Enough

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

-- Lao-Tzu (BC 600-?), Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism

Live A Good Life

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

-- Marcus Aurelius (121-180), philosopher and writer

Contented Dazzlement

Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

-- Lewis Thomas (1913 - 1993), physician, author, Dean of Yale Medical School, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

Poet Tree

     AI
    POE
    GRAY
   DANTE
   HORACE
  KHAYYAM
  KALIDASA
 SOPHOCLES
 BAUDELAIRE
 SHAKESPEARE
     LI
     TU
     SU
ARISTOPHANES

Q. What is this curious list I see?
A. The answer is plainly, "Poet - tree".

-- Kay Haugaard, on the Word-A-Day mailing list

Normal

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for -- in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

-- Ellen Goodman (1941-), American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist

One Gift

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.

-- Bruce Barton (1886-1967), American author, advertising expert

Texting

People who have something really private to say probably shouldn't do it in a text on their cellphone.

-- Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group based in Washington, New York Times, 9 December 2009

Until The Day

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville

We Cannot Have Both

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

-- Abraham Flexner, educator (1866-1959)

Independently

One must be very naive or dishonest to imagine that men choose their beliefs independently of their situation.

-- Claude Levi-Strauss (28 November 1908 - 30 October 2009), French anthropologist, Tristes Tropiques (1955), Chapter 16 : Markets

Do Something

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause -- there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once.

-- Joss Whedon (1964-), writer and film director

No Interest

The absence of a time frame for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.

-- President Barack Obama, 1 December 2009, in a speech announcing the addition of 30,000 troops to the fight in Afghanistan, coupled with a plan to begin removing troops in July 2011