Il faut le maleur pour creuser certaines mines mystérieures cachées dans l'intelligence humaine; il faut la pression pour faire éclater la poudre.— The Abbot Faria in Alexandre Dumas's La Compte de Monte Cristo tells Edmond Dantès that adversity is necessary for certain mysterious mines in the human intelligence to be dug, and that pressure is needed to spark the [gun]powder.
It's interesting that there are not many complaining, almost suicidal, Twitter posts considering how much life often sucks and all.— rainforestinn b&b, on twitter.
And if you're on a SAN, you're using a network designed by disk firmware writers. God help you.— Jeff Bonwick, in his blog entry, "ZFS End-to-End Data Integrity".
Stop ROFLing at me! Nobody ROFLs in real life, idiot!— Ian Hecox, in "Ian Gets Lucky", when Anthony Padilla rolls on the floor laughing.
The camera challenges you to be a better person. And it wins.— Joe, or "Vanawesome" in the comments to his video, "Cultural Healing with Vanawesome", where he praises the Panasonic GH1 video camera.
— Simon Maierhofer in his article, "Should You Buy on Dips or Sell Into Rallies?", November 6, 2009.$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) 10 years ago would be worth $7,774 today.
$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at its 2000 high would be worth $6,974 today.
$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at its 2002 low would be worth $13,724 today.
$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at its 2007 peak would be worth $6,805 today.
$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at its 2009 low would be worth $15,754 today.
I'd say those figures imply that the stock market in general is not a good buy-and-hold investment over a sub-decade time period for normal people. A low-risk $5,000 I-series U.S. savings bond purchased 10 years ago, despite being half the $10,000 starting point, would still beat the $10,000 stock market investment substantially, winding up with a value of $9,134.
And what happened in America is that the people who were making money out of a lack of wise restraints just got more and more power by doing more and more lobbying and making larger and larger political contributions and being aided by a certain ideological nuttiness which assumed that because free markets worked so well compared to, say, Communism, that it automatically followed that if there were no laws at all restraining financial conduct the economy would work better. And that's not so! The economy works worse if you allow unrestrained sin and folly in finance.— Charlie Munger in a 2009 BBC interview.
Ô René, si tu crains les troubles du coeur, défie-toi de la solitude: les grandes passions sont solitaires, et les transporter au désert, c'est les rendre à leur empire.— Chactas, an American Indian of the Natchez tribe, and the narrator of Chateaubriand's fictional, Atala.
An approximate translation is, "O René, if you fear troubles of the heart, resist solitude: the greatest passions are solitary, and to transport them to the wilderness is to bring them to their own domain."
America, most historians teach us, has sought to avoid the extremes, to be flexible without resembling Silly Putty; to be principled without being arch. I think our country is not clearly enough avoiding the former extreme. I think she is in danger of losing her identity—not on account of the orthodoxy that we are being told in some quarters threatens to suffocate us; but for failure to nourish any orthodoxy at all.— William F. Buckley, Jr., in the preface to Up from Liberalism. I've never seen orthodoxy as something needing nourishing from anybody other than occasional collections of motivated experts, like the Council of Nicea. I doubt Buckley thinks that the government needs to cultivate orthodoxy. He probably thinks that "Americans" do, meaning the cultural majority. At least he thinks that anti-orthodoxy for its own sake, although often fashionable, can be dangerous.
Does your economics teacher refer impartially—or in any other way—to the works of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Lionel Robbins, Frank Knight, Orval Watts, Wilhelm Roepke, or to those of any other economist of the non-Keynesian school?— a letter from The National Review to university professors quoted in Up from Liberalism, by William F. Buckley, Jr., mentions an interesting list of economists. The implication is that anyone in the list would balance out the liberal perspective of John Maynard Keynes. I hadn't really realized that a conservative might consider Keynes to be an economist preferred by liberals.
Capitalism is about risk taking and if youre not a risk taker, you should have your money in the bank, Treasury bills, or a savings bond, not the levered investment of a bank or an aging automobile company. Let there be no company too big, too important, or too well-connected to fail as long as the systemic health of the economy is not threatened.— Bill Gross, founder of PIMCO, points out that failure after the assumption of too much risk is a part of what defines capitalism. I wish he hadn't qualified the statement. If the failure of the company would hurt the systemic health of the economy, then I'd say it's not really capitalism, because such a company need not fear taking foolish risks, meaning that it has no real competition. Competition is the heart of capitalism.
The average woman (thats you) cannot achieve a masculine monster look simply through strength training.— Krista dispels weightlifting myths at stumptuous.com.
Thank you for making me believe that just like in our films, in our life too, finally in the end, everything is ok. Happy Endings. And if it is not happy then it's not "the end," my friends!— The 1970's incarnation of the male protagonist of the famous Bollywood movie, "Om Shanti Om," in his acceptance speech for "the Bottle Award", presented to him by his drinking buddy.
But to say that we have sovereignty, as Governor Reagan has said, is to belie the intention of the people who supervised our diplomacy in the early part of the century, and it is also to urge people to believe that we harbor an appetite for colonialism which we shrink from, having ourselves declared in the Declaration of Independence principles that were not only applicable to people fortunate enough to be born in Massachusetts or in Connecticut or in New York or in Virginia, but people born everywhere.— William F. Buckley, Jr., debating Ronald Reagan on the issue of the Panama Canal treaties in the 70's, recounted in his "literary autobiography," Miles Gone By.
Legislators will correctly perceive that either raising taxes or cutting expenditures will threaten their re-election. To avoid this fate, they can opt for high rates of inflation, which never require a recorded vote and cannot be attributed to a specific action that any elected official takes.— Warren Buffet, in an August 2009 New York Times editorial, The Greenback Effect.
This is the thing you have to remember, is Alfa build a car to be as good as a car can be—briefly.— Jeremy Clarkson, in the BBC show "Top Gear" episode, "Top Gear challenge: How to Make an Alfa Romeo Look Good: Over-taking test".
Sometimes life is like a simile.— Larry Tucker, of Athens, GA
It is my sincere belief that our dissatisfaction in life is directly proportional to the magnitude of disagreement between our interpretation of reality and reality itself.— Chris Wilson, in Healing the Unhappy Caveman.
Suddenly global investors look out and say 'Wait a minute, are Americans really willing to tax themselves to pay us back?'— Kenneth S. Rogoff, in the July 8, 2009, New York Times. The reason U.S. Treasury securities are so safe is the idea that they're backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, but if the government won't lower spending or increase taxes, its only option for lowering debt is printing money, causing inflation, and lowering the value of the money that it pays back to bond holders. So the integrity of U.S. debt obligations is contingent on a fiscal discipline that has been absent in recent politics.
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address.Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new, in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal Government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence—whether sought or unsought—by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties and democratic processes.
Car dans notre discours quotidien il y a environs vingt percent de mots qui sont des mots germaniques. Ce qui fait que je dis volontiers que le francais est la langue la plus germanique des langues romanes, alors que l'angais est la langue la plus roman des langues germaniques.— Alain Rey, on France Inter's June 26, 2009, show. I might not have transcribed it correctly, but it means (loosely), "Because in our daily speech about twenty percent of the words are from a germanic language. So I readily say that French is the most germanic of the romanic languages, while English is the most romanic of the germanic languages."
Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock. Rock. Robot rock.— The complete lyrics of Daft Punk's "Robot Rock", from Human after All. The lyrics from the same song in Alive 2007 are completely different, including lines like "Robot. Robot. Robot. Robot. Rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock."
The problem was that if you could really understand the difference between good and bad advice then you really didn't need advice.— Satyajit Das, in Traders, Guns, & Money, talking about financial advisors selling complex products.
Liberalism is a political philosophy that seeks to extend personal autonomy to as many people as possible, if necessary through positive government action; socialism, by contrast, seeks as much equality as possible, even if doing so curtails individual liberty. These are differences of kind, not degree-- differences that have historically placed the two philosophies in direct competition.— Alan Wolfe, in The New Republic, April 2009.
We're partial to putting out large amounts of money where we won't have to make another decision. If you buy something because it's undervalued, then you have to think about selling it when it approaches your calculation of its intrinsic value. That's hard. But, if you can buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That's a good thing.— Charlie Munger, quoted in Poor Charlie's Almanack.
I'm no genius. I'm smart in spots, and I stay around those spots.— Thomas Watson, Sr., founder of IBM, quoted in Poor Charlie's Almanack.
One of the few home secretaries who dominated his department rather than be cowed by it was Lord Whitelaw in the 1980s. He boasted how after any security lapse, the police would come to beg for new and draconian powers. He laughed and sent them packing, saying only a bunch of softies would erode British liberty to give themselves an easier job. He said they laughed in return and remarked that "it was worth a try".— Simon Jenkins, The Guardian, Wednesday, 1 April 2009, Here's proof. The innocent do have something to fear. I came accross this quote on Bruce Schneier's blog.
Nagios is great 'cept when you have no power, no land line, and no cell. :(— Mark Toomey observes on twitter, after an Athens, Georgia snow storm knocks out electrical power, that the powerful Nagios computer monitoring system has its limits.
The modern form of this duty would demand at least some increase in conventional taxes or the imposition of some new consumption taxes. In so doing, the needed and cheering economic message, "We will do what it takes," would get a corollary: "and without unacceptably devaluing our money." Surely the more complex message is more responsible, considering that, first, our practices of running twin deficits depend on drawing from reserves of trust that are not infinite and, second, the message of the corollary would not be widely believed unless it was accompanied by some new taxes.— Charles T. Munger, in a February 2009 article for The Washington Post, knows you can't debt your way out of an economic crisis without imposing the ultimate tax: inflation, effectively a retroactive tax, because savings are suddenly worth less.
The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague.— Edsgar W. Dijkstra, in his 1972 ACM Turing Award lecture, "The Humble Programmer".
None of the ideas presented here are new; they are just forgotten from time to time.— Alan J. Perlis, in the first ever ACM Turing Award lecture.
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.— Mario Cuomo, then governor of New York, in the 2002 documentary, "The Statue of Liberty," an episode from Ken Burns American Stories.
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.— Barbara Jordan, former congresswoman, in the 2002 documentary, "The Statue of Liberty," an episode from Ken Burns American Stories.
If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.— Howell Cobb
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.— Neal Stephenson's narrator reflecting on the behavior of Randy's old gaming friend in Cryptonomicon.
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.— Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in On the Art of Reading.
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.— Sir Joshua Reynolds, quoted by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in the first lecture in On the Art of Writing.
Great as is our own literature, we must consider it as a legacy to be improved.— Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in the Preface to On the Art of Writing.
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.— William Gibson on the success of Neuromancer, in its introduction.
Millions of us wouldn't know our next-door neighbors if we ran over them in our driveways.— Vicki Iovine, explaining why pregnant women can't always seek advice from their neighbors in The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy.
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.— Douglas Adams, in Last Chance to See.
SWEAT IS THE CHAMPAGNE OF YOUR ENDORPHINS.— the tag on my new "hind" brand running shorts.
Who am I to judge him, but you would be wise to watch out for that guy.— Sweettooth Simpleton, in "The Malingerer", on Santana's Greatest Hits.
Wisdom aquisition is a moral duty.— Charles T. Munger, speaking at the USC Law Commencement, 2007.
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.— Boutros Boutros-Ghali, on France Inter's Eclectik, May 26, 2007. Translation: I think that ... every man of action needs to be a Utopianist, because the "Utopia" of today becomes the reality of tomorrow.
Don't try dancing at the Parthenon. They don't like it.— Matt Harding, in the outtakes from his YouTube video where he dances around the world.
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.— Charles T. Munger, in an article about the overcompensation of CEOs in The Baltimore Sun.
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.— historian Barbara Tuchman, quoting Sebastien Faure in "Historical Clues to Present Discontents".
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.— Benjamin Graham, one of Warren Buffet's mentors, in the Epilogue to Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street.
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.The Catholic Study Bible, New American Bible, James 1:19
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.— Charles T. Munger, speaking at the Philanthropy Roundtable.
Alan Robertson has identified the Three R's of High-Availability as:— (Probably) Alan Robertson, at The Linux High Availability Website.
- 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.— Charles C. Jones, Jr., in a September 9, 1954 letter relating his recent election to the position of first speaker of the senior class at Dane Law School, Harvard University. This is one of the letters in the 1972 (unabridged) edition of Children of Pride.
I sat there for some time, a young man with more on his mind than in it.— Bill Bryson, reflecting about Dover in Notes from a Small Island.
You could say ... "I will participate in the game." It's a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts.— Joseph Campbell, talking about life in the Bill Moyers inteviews
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.— Carol Matthau, Among the Porcupines
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.— T.S. Eliot, quoted in Ted R. Spivey's The Coming of the New Man
Ok, I have a better plan.— Linus Torvalds, in a 13 June 2005 post to the git mailing list
- 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?— BadMoFo, in a TribalWar web forum thread
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.— Ted R. Spivey, The Coming of the New Man
All them variables, they make my head swim.— Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen, in the gnus 5.10.6 texinfo manual.
(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.— Robert McNeil, Wordstruck.
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.— Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree.
There is something drearily predictable about xenophobic protectionism.— The Economist, v.376 n.8433 p.12, July 2-8 2005.
Don't point out the obvious. It makes you seem arrogant.— Sam Hopkins, computer programmer at CORAID, Inc.
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.— Paul Graham, seen at Idle Words quoting lemondoor post.
Ya see Comma, you can still hurt people and their feelings with all manner of different rampages.— Strong Bad of homestarrunner.com.
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.— Charlie Munger on the Psychology of Human Misjudgement
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.— How to do Research At the MIT AI Lab
But, hey, man—Every day's a brand new deal, right? Just keep on working and something's bound to turn up.— Harvey Pekar in the Movie, American Splendor
Resource allocation is tricky business.— Peter J. Denning on Computer Operating Systems design, SOSP 1967.
People are our most important problem.— Peter G. Neumann on Computer Operating Systems design, SOSP 1969.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What would you do, sir?— John Maynard Keynes.
The goodness of an operating system is not in how pretty it is, but in how well it supports the user.— Linus Torvalds, contrasting Linux with microkernels and other "pretty" kernels.
Always consult a physician before performing any physical activity.— warning on Everlast Chinning and Sit Up Bar packaging.
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.— Hank Williams.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.— Benjamin Franklin
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.]— Edsger W. Dijkstra
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.— Antony Hoare, regarding the success of the programming language PL/I.
1980 Turing Award Lecture
(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.— Alan Kay