Quite a Quote!

Vincent Van Gogh: Great things

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. The trick is to focus on the first small thing. Starting small is still starting, and small beginnings often lead to extraordinary endings.” —Vincent Van Gogh.
Adlai Stevenson II: Hungry man

“A hungry man is not a free man.” —Adlai Stevenson II.
Russell M Fowler: Business cycle

“Maybe the reason the business cycle endures is the economy is solidly based on human nature. When things are going good, some human reactions occur: overconfidence, complacency, poor workmanship, greed, over expansion, mistakes; all bad and leading to a downturn. Then when things are going bad, there is a tendency to shape up and turn…
Hartley Shawcross: Answer to conscience

“There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.” —Hartley Shawcross.
Gertrude Stein: Genius

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” —Gertrude Stein.
Thomas Aldrich: Letter

“It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don’t think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There’s a singular and a perpetual…
George Bernard Shaw: No sincerer love

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” —George Bernard Shaw.
Boris Beizer: Testing versus debugging

“Testing proves a programmer’s failure. Debugging is the programmer’s vindication.” —Boris Beizer.
Robert Frost: Jury

“A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” —Robert Frost.
Gerald Holton: Uniquely privileged

“In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.” —Gerald Holton.
Hal Abelson: Giants on my shoulders

“If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.” —Hal Abelson.
Edward Abbey: Ideology of the cancer cell

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” —Edward Abbey.
Richard Hamming: Shoulders and toes

“Mathematicians stand on each other’s shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other’s toes.” —Richard Hamming.
Colette: Silence

“To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.” —Colette.
Unknown: Shoulders and toes

“It has been said that physicists stand on one another’s shoulders. If this is the case, then programmers stand on one another’s toes, and software engineers dig each other’s graves.” —Unknown.
Learned Hand: Loyalty to truth

“I will remember that what has brought us up from savagery is a loyalty to truth, and truth cannot emerge unless it is subjected to the utmost scrutiny — will you not agree that a society which has lost sight of that, cannot survive?” —Learned Hand.
Rebecca West: Biography

“Just how difficult it is to write a biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.” —Rebecca West.
Peter Van Roy: Static typing

“Static typing is to reliable programming what a spelling checker is to a good writer.” —Peter Van Roy.
Paul Graham: Founders

“There are things founders can do that managers can’t, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is.”— Paul Graham, Founder Mode.
Edith Wharton: Two ways of spreading light

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” —Edith Wharton.
Eric Raymond: Smart data structures

“Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.” —Eric Raymond.
Stendhal: Shepherd

“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.” —Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle).
Bion of Borysthenes: Adapt yourself to circumstances

“We should not try to alter circumstances but to adapt ourselves to them as they really are, just as sailors do. They don’t try to change the winds or the sea but ensure that they are always ready to adapt themselves to conditions. In a flat calm they use the oars; with a following breeze…
Francis Bacon: Cunning men pass for wise

“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.” —Francis Bacon.
Oprah Winfrey: Real integrity

“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” —Oprah Winfrey.
Ethan Allen: Miracles

“In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.” —Ethan Allen.
Alexander Hamilton: Exhibit things as they are

“I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.” —Alexander Hamilton.
Bill Maher: Infantile fantasy land

“Maybe every other American movie shouldn’t be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.” —Bill Maher.
Honore dé Balzac: Duration of passion

“The duration of passion is proportionate with the original resistance of the woman.” —Honore dé Balzac.
Swami Prabhupada: Diamonds

“If you sell diamonds, you cannot expect to have many customers. But a diamond is a diamond even if there are no customers.” —Swami Prabhupada.
George Leonard: Plateau

“The most important lessons here — especially for young people — is that even if you’re shooting for the stars, you’re going to spend most of your time on a plateau. That’s where the deepest, most lasting learning takes place, so you might as well enjoy it. When I was first learning…I just assumed that…
Michelle Obama: Immigrants

“If you or your parents are immigrants, know that you are part of a proud American tradition — the infusion of new cultures, talents and ideas, generation after generation, that has made us the greatest country on earth.” —Michelle Obama.
Fran Lebowitz: Responsibility as a parent

“Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word ‘collectible’ as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.”…
David Lynch: Happy accidents

“Happy accidents are real gifts, and they can open the door to a future that didn’t even exist. It’s kind of nice sometimes to set up something to encourage or allow happy accidents to happen.” —David Lynch.
Margaret Courtney: Be kind to thy father

“Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, / Who loved thee so fondly as he? / He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, / And joined in thy innocent glee.” —Margaret Courtney.
Franklin K Dane: Ignorance

“Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow.” —Franklin K. Dane.
Moliere: Accountable

“It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.” —Moliere.
Oscar Wilde: Ignorance of the community

“Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.” —Oscar Wilde.
Martin Luther King Jr: Good neighbor

“The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.”—Martin Luther King Jr.
Rita Mae Brown: Neurosis

“I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme foolishness. I no longer thought that. There’s nothing foolish in loving anyone. Thinking you’ll be loved in return is what’s foolish.” —Rita Mae Brown.
Bella Lewitzky: Deeply rooted

“To move freely you must be deeply rooted.” —Bella Lewitzky.
Warren Buffett: Wonderful little investments

“People will not tell…you about wonderful little investments. It’s not the way the investment business is set up…. You’ve got to learn what you know and what you don’t know. Within the arena of what you know, you have to pursue it very vigorously and act on it when you find it. And you can’t…
Brad Jacobs: Not beating myself up

“Not beating myself up has been a hard-learned lesson for me and those around me. I became much happier in my middle age when I stopped expecting unrealistic levels of perfection from myself and my family, my friends, and my co-workers, not to mention customers, vendors, and shareholders.” —Brad Jacobs.
Niklaus Wirth: Another fallacy

“Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.” —Niklaus Wirth.
E E Cummings: Nobody-but-yourself

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” —E.E. Cummings.
Joan Baez: Relationship

“The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.” —Joan Baez.
Rick Rubin: Outside the standard paradigm

“It’s a healthy practice to approach our work with as few accepted rules, starting points, and limitations as possible. Often the standards in our chosen medium are so ubiquitous, we take them for granted. They are invisible and unquestioned. This makes it nearly impossible to think outside the standard paradigm.” —Rick Rubin.
Lewis H Lapham: Moral dandyism

“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn’t enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong.” —Lewis H.…
Estée Lauder: I do what’s right for me

“I began to value myself so much more, trust my instincts, trust my uniqueness. Trusting oneself does not always come naturally. If learned when young, the practice sticks. Today, there is no one who can intimidate me because of title or skill or fame. I do what’s right for me.” —Estee Lauder.
Gerald Durrell: Preserve the habitat

“You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself.…