also see Rich's Pattis's CS1 Quotes
[Added on or after 9/1/2008]
Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it. --David Starr Jordan, from a Teachers calendar page. See later for a shorter version; not sure which is correct.
"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties." --Jules Renard (1864-1910), source unknown
[Added on or after 4/2/2004]
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. --David Starr Jordan; quoted by Alex E. Bell in "Death by UML Fever", ACM Queue, March 2004.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from
bad judgement. --attributed to Jim Horning by Alex E. Bell in
"Death by
UML Fever", ACM Queue, March 2004. Horning himself traces the
quote to a legendary 13th century Sufi sage, the Mullah Nasrudin.
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be. -- Jim Horning
What you do is of little significance; but it is very important that you doNondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
From the Slashdot FAQ, 12/6/00
[Added on or after 9/16/98]
For every problem there is a solution, simple, elegant, and wrong. Quoted to me by student Jay Florey 10/25/97; he doesn't remember the source.
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. -Linus Pauling (Wordaday 8/24/98)
[Added on or after 11/19/97]
It is bad luck to be superstitious. -Andrew Mathis (Wordaday 6/3/98)
This aphorism would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. AWADmail Issue 10, April 17, 1998
Practice doesn't make perfect -- unless it's perfect practice. (11/19/97 My sister Susan, a riding instructor, is fond of saying this to her students; she doesn't know the origin.)
No equations after 1:00 pm -- said by Norbert Wiener to T. Huang, reported in a talk by Huang 11/18/97. Apparently Wiener was a very early riser, and by 1:00 pm had typically worked himself to exhaustion.
None of this analysis is very deep -- it's all stuff you can find in Knuth, volume 3. --Richard Ladner, in a talk given 11/18/97.
"La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien a ajouter, mais quand il ne reste rien a enlever." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery (quoted in an e-mail from Ian Masterson 1/12/98)
[Added to the list before 11/19/97]
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is we do not dare that they are difficult. -Seneca (from Wordaday 8/7/96)
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust (from Wordaday 8/9/96)
I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand. Have heard this quoted many times; latest was in SIGCSE dist. list by John A. Cross, 8/18/96.
A thick head can do as much damage as a hard heart. -H.W. Dodds. Quoted in Wordaday 8/21/96
When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are. -R. H. Grant. Quoted in Wordaday 8/28/96
Me and Nature are two. -Woody Allen. Quoted in a sermon 8/25/96
Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is. -Thomas Szasz. (from Wordaday 8/29/96)
Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers. -William Penn (from Wordaday 9/2/96)
Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. -G.M. Trevelyan (from Wordaday 9/3/96)
Bernard Berenson: "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. "Quoted by Seymour Goodman in a SIGCSE list e-mail, 9/4/96
Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging. -Duke Snider (Wordaday 10/3/96)
Conscience is the inner voice warning us that someone may be looking. -H.L. Mencken
- Leistungsorientierte Bezahlung fuer Professoren. Bonn. Der Praesident der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz will Professoren nach Leistung bezahlen und nicht mehr nach Dienstjahren. Er sagte, Aelterwerden sei keine besondere Leistung. (German News 11/12/96)
We learn from history that we do not learn anything from history. Wordaday 11/15/96
[Sent by Mani Soma 11/15/96 to a list that included Lazowska; about space re-assignment & people, referring the higher floors in the new building]:
"I have tried various floors since, but I have not found that they have made much difference to me. Life tastes much the same, whether we quaff it from a golden goblet or drink it out of a stone mug. The hours come laden with the same mixture of joy and sorrow, no matter where we wait for them.
A waistcoat of broadcloth or of fustian is alike to an aching heart, and we laugh no merrier on velvet cushions than we did on wooden chairs. Often have I sighed in those low-ceilinged rooms, yet disappointments have come neither less nor lighter since I quitted them. Life works upon a compensating balance, and the happiness we gain in one direction we lose in another. As our means increase, so do our desires; and we ever stand midway between the two." - --- J.K. Jerome, "On Furnished Apartments"
The trouble with doing nothing is that you never know when you are finished. --Wordaday 11/22/96
If you want anything done well, do it yourself. This is why most people laugh at their own jokes. -Bob Edwards (Wordaday 12/3/96)
Some people would not recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. -- Wordaday 12/5/96
Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation. -- Wordaday 12/13/96
I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate. -Elbert Hubbard (Wordaday 1/5/97)
It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. -J. Bronowski [The Ascent of Man] (Wordaday 1/2/97)
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It's that they can't see the problem. -G.K. Chesterton (Wordaday 1/9/97)
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -Leo Tolstoy (Wordaday 12/29/97)
We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. -Talmudic Saying (Wordaday 2/1/97).
The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. -John Ruskin (Wordaday 2/3/97)
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -General George S. Patton, Jr. (Wordaday 2/13/97)
Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone's tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own.- A.V. Mason, M.D. (Josh's e-mail 4/3/97)
A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it. -Alistair Cooke (from Wordaday 5/31/97)
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. -Alvin Toffler (from Wordaday, 7/17/97)
Personally I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. -- Sir Winston Churchill, from "A Churchill Reader" (1954). {quoted in CSM 7?97}
The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. -Henry David Thoreau (from Wordaday 8/29/97)
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. -Desiderius Erasmus (from Wordaday 7/24/97)
I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place. -Harriet Beecher Stowe (from Wordaday 9/19/97)
"Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well" quoted by Dick Karp in a meeting 9/18/97 as good advice that had been given to him.
An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. -Benjamin Stolberg (Wordaday 9/22/97)
Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial. -Richard Ben Sapir (Wordaday 6/24/97)
Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. (Wordaday 8/17/97)
The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves. -P.D. James (Wordaday 9/7/97)
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. -Galbraith's Law (Wordaday 9/10/97)
As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do. -Zachary Scott (Wordaday 9/19/97)
Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. -Sarah Bernhardt (Wordaday 9/20/97)
Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass. -Confucius (Wordaday 9/23/97)
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. -Martin Luther King, Jr. (Wordaday 10/9/97)
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. -G. K. Chesterton, from 'On Running After One's Hat'. (quoted in CSM, 1996?)
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us. -Oliver Wendell Holmes (Wordaday 11/8/97)
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. -Annie Dillard (Wordaday 11/9/97)
What if there were no hypothetical situations? -Andrew Kohlsmith (Wordaday 11/15/97)