Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Doris Lessing: Learning
“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” —Doris Lessing.
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Mauricio Macri: Future of work
“The future of work will be a race between education and technology.” —Mauricio Macri.
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Martin Gardner: History of boneheads
“Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals, the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great creative scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned if at all.” —Martin Gardner.
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Dorothy Parker: The ladies men admire
“The ladies men admire, I’ve heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light; They’d rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints… So far, I’ve had no complaints.” —Dorothy Parker.
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Asrani: Autobiography
“If you publish Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, no one will read it but if it’s Madhuri Dixit’s or Madhubala’s autobiography people will come and read it.” —Asrani.
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Kristian Hammond: Humanize machines
“As we humanize machines, we stop mechanizing ourselves.” —Kristian Hammond, Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University.
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Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Beautiful people
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an understanding of life that fills them with compassion…Beautiful people do not just happen.” —Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
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Al Gore: Airplane travel
“Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.” —Al Gore.
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Arthur Miller: Value
“Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.” —Arthur Miller.
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Ryan Singer: Software complexity
“So much complexity in software comes from trying to make one thing do two things.” —Ryan Singer.
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Martin Luther: Every green tree
“If we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” —Martin Luther.
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Rabindranath Tagore: Principal element of creation
“Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realising on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation.” —Rabindranath Tagore.
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Dwight D Eisenhower: Persuade a man
“I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Sea of small acts
“Keep going. Tyranny is eroded by a sea of small acts. Everything matters.” —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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Osho: Remain in the world
“Remain in the world, act in the world, do whatsoever is needful, and yet remain transcendental, aloof, detached, a lotus flower in the pond.” —Osho.
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Diane Keaton: Relationships are hard
“Relationships are hard. You’re lucky if you find someone.” —Diane Keaton.
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Eric S Raymond: Zen paradox
“Indeed, it seems the prescription for highest software productivity is almost a Zen paradox; if you want the most efficient production, you must give up trying to make programmers produce. Handle their subsistence, give them their heads, and forget about deadlines. To a conventional manager this sounds crazily indulgent and doomed — but it is…
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Carl Lewis: America
“Don’t talk to me about America right now. Because the reality is that now the America that we grew up in, and we saw and we knew all along, is showing itself. Trump did not change anything. He just gave people a forum to talk. So now that they’re talking, the world sees America. That’s…
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Carl Lewis: Africa
“Africa, that’s a continent that’s been ignited and there are 52 countries, billions of people that are finally exposed to a lot of the same opportunity. And of course they’re going to be. India is the same way. India gets its infrastructure of youth going and then gets them into colleges. If they could go…
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Steven Berkoff: Power in a symbol
“We often find far more power in a symbol than in something that is an actuality.” —STEVEN BERKOFF.
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Lin Yutang: Small men, big shadows
“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.” —Lin Yutang.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Sense of the beautiful
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
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John Lennon: Living life in peace
“Imagine there’s no countries, / It isn’t hard to do. / Nothing to kill or die for, / And no religion, too. / Imagine all the people / Living life in peace.” —John Lennon.
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Terry Baker: Completeness
“A program is never less than 90% complete, and never more than 95% complete.” —Terry Baker.
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John W Gardner: Excellence
“We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it…
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Guido van Rossum: Read much more often
“Code is read much more often than it is written.” —Guido van Rossum.
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Desmond Tutu: Neutrality and injustice
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” —Desmond Tutu.
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Jilly Cooper: Domestic animal
“The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.”—Jilly Cooper.
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Allan Rufus: Life is like a sandwich!
“Life is like a sandwich! Birth as one slice, and death as the other. What you put in-between the slices is up to you. Is your sandwich tasty or sour?” —Allan Rufus.
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David Brin: Power attracts the corruptible
‘It’s said that “power corrupts”, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.’ —David Brin.
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Jane Jacobs: Cities
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only when they are created by everybody.” —JANE JACOBS.
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Doris Lessing: Only one way to read
“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag – and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or…
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Paul Smith: What we expect to find
“What we see in people is determined, in large part, by what we expect to find.” —Paul Smith.
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Patricia Routledge: Spinsters
“People have always pitied spinsters. We have been derided, as if we had missed out on life.” —Patricia Routledge.
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Gore Vidal: Bring truth back
“Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back.” —Gore Vidal.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Knowledge grows by subtraction
“So knowledge grows by subtraction much more than by addition – given that what we know today might turn out to be wrong but what we know to be wrong cannot turn out to be right, at least not easily.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Jane Goodall: Hope is often misunderstood
“Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.” —Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: When I despair
“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.” —Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
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Larry Wall: One line or 80 columns?
“You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns?” —Larry Wall.
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Mark Twain: Prehistoric toads
“It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.” —Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates: Racism
“Racism tends to attract attention when it’s flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping — positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want…
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Mark Twain: Fluid prejudice
“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” —Mark Twain.
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Miguel de Cervantes: Offspring of the mind
“No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.” —Miguel de Cervantes.
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Jim Lovell: Be thankful for problems
“Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job.” —Jim Lovell.
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Alberto Brandolini: Developer’s misunderstanding
“It’s the developer’s misunderstanding, not the expert knowledge, that gets released in production.” —Alberto Brandolini.
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T S Eliot: Harm
“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them.” —T.S. Eliot.
