She [the statue of liberty] makes me think, more than feel. Makes me think how important it is to remain vigilant—especially now, as a governor, where there are new temptations to forget that our strength is liberty. It can be very, very tempting to squash a little freedom here, to restrain a little bit there.

The greatest threat is the inattention of the people in this country to liberty. If we don't attend to it; if we take it for granted, and let people trample on it in even minute ways, it can gradually suffer an erosion, just like the statue itself suffered some erosion. You have to attend to liberty.

If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.

I think I came across this quote in Shelby Foote's, The Civil War, a Narrative, but I didn't jot that down next to the quote.

Confederate General Patrick Cleburne suggested emancipating the slaves and enlisting them in the confederate army, but his idea was not well received, and he was encouraged to surpress it.

Chester nods all the way through this, but does not rudely interrupt Randy as a younger nerd would. Your younger nerd takes offense quickly when someone near him begins to utter declarative sentences, because he reads into it an assertion that he, the nerd, does not already know the information being imparted. But your older nerd has more self-confidence, and besides, understands that frequently people need to think out loud. And highly advanced nerds will furthermore understand that uttering declarative sentences whose contents are already known to all present is part of the social process of making conversation and therefore should not be construed as aggression under any circumstances.

And yet, 'academy,' 'museum,' even 'education' are sound words if only we could make the things correspond with their meanings. The meaning of 'education' is a leading out, a drawing-forth; not an imposition of something on somebody—a catechism or an uncle— upon the child, but an eliciting of what is within him. Now, if you followed my last lecture, we find that which is within him to be no less, potentially, than the Kingdom of God.

The more extensive, therefore, your acquaintance is with the works of the works of those who have excelled, the more extensive will be your powers of invention—and what may appear still more like a paradox, the more original will be your conceptions.

Great as is our own literature, we must consider it as a legacy to be improved.

This is something like having an adult child one never hears from, but who evidently does quite well, travels widely, and seems to meet interesting people.

Millions of us wouldn't know our next-door neighbors if we ran over them in our driveways.

On the other hand, human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

SWEAT IS THE CHAMPAGNE OF YOUR ENDORPHINS.

Who am I to judge him, but you would be wise to watch out for that guy.

Wisdom aquisition is a moral duty.

Je pense que ... tout homme d'action a besoin d'etre utopiste, par-ce que l'utopie d'aujour d'hui devient la realite de demain.

Don't try dancing at the Parthenon. They don't like it.

There's always hope. But, frequently, when things are very excessive, the correction is very painful. Korea had cowboy capitalism, with low fiduciary standards, and things got worse and worse. They had to go through a total collapse and a huge scandal, but it's now largely fixed.

I'm now reading George Soros' The Alchemy of Finance, where Soros describes many "reflexive" processes, cycles that feed themselves until the excess becomes unsupportable, resulting in a "bust". It's interesting how often this kind of thing shows up in life, whether it's one person drinking or financiers engaging in "cowboy capitalism".

Every revolution ends in the reappearance of a new ruling class.

I want to say that at least half of all the pleasures that I have enjoyed in life have come from the world of the mind, from things of beauty and culture, especially literature and art. These things are available to everybody, virtually free of charge: all one needs is the interest to start with and a minimal effort to appreciate the riches spread out before us. Grandchildren, take that initial interest, if possible; make that continued effort. Once you have found it—the life of culture—never let it go.

Know this, my dear brothers: everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God.

It is, of course, irritating that extra care in thinking is not all good but actually introduces extra error. But most good things have undesired "side effects," and thinking is no exception.

Alan Robertson has identified the Three R's of High-Availability as:

• Redundancy,
• Redundancy, and
• Redundancy.

Honors and offices purchased are satisfactory to neither party, whereas they are always pleasing to both parties when merit alone is regarded as the standard of availability.

I sat there for some time, a young man with more on his mind than in it.

You could say ... "I will participate in the game." It's a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts.

When love is a memory in the solitude of age, it fills it with pleasure and pride, because it's so brave to love. And that valor of trusting gives even that final aloneness an echo of a heart once filled.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Ok, I have a better plan.
- you learn to fly by flapping your arms fast enough
- you then learn to pee burning gasoline
- then, you fly around New York, setting everybody you see on fire, until people make you emperor.

if evolution is real why aren't there lizard men running around?

The new man has at the center of his being a spontaneous energy that contains love and a sense of universal law which arouses love and respect in those associated with him.

All them variables, they make my head swim.

(The gnus mailreader is extremely configurable. Many of the settings are performed through lisp variables.)

To emerge from the stage door into prosaic daylight, if only to get a sandwich down the street, seemed romantic, because I was coming from the theater and going back to the theater.

Grandpa said he always got that kind of mixed up feeling. He said it was exciting because something new was being born, and it was sad because you knowed you can't hold on to it.

There is something drearily predictable about xenophobic protectionism.

Don't point out the obvious. It makes you seem arrogant.

I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. This sort of thing happens to a lot of people, and I would *really* like to avoid it.

Ya see Comma, you can still hurt people and their feelings with all manner of different rampages.

Well we all know people who've flunked, and they try and memorize and they try and spout back and they just...it doesn't work. The brain doesn't work that way. You've got to array facts on the theory structures answering the question "Why?" If you don't do that, you just cannot handle the world.

Many researchers spend more than half their time reading. You can learn a lot more quickly from other people's work than from doing your own.

But, hey, man—Every day's a brand new deal, right? Just keep on working and something's bound to turn up.

Resource allocation is tricky business.

People are our most important problem.

When the facts change, I change my mind. What would you do, sir?

The goodness of an operating system is not in how pretty it is, but in how well it supports the user.

Always consult a physician before performing any physical activity.

If I want to honkey tonk around 'til two or three, well, brother, that's my headache — don't you worry 'bout me. Just mind your own business.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs. [The things society asks for are generally understood, and you don't need a University for that; the University has to offer what no one else can provide.]

Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way—and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.

(I like how Hoare manages here to have several good independently-quotable statements appearing in rapid succession.)

Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.