Quotes

From Michael G. Noll

A random list of quotations.

• "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (available from Project Gutenberg and Google Books)
• "If you done it, it ain't bragging."
  -- Walt Whitman, US poet, 1819-1892
• "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. (...) Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
  -- Hermann Göring, April 1946, during the Nuremberg trials in an interview with Gustave Gilbert (also available in German)
• "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
  -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• "I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."
  -- Winston Churchill
• "I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."
  -- Winston Churchill
• "Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it."
  -- Alan Kay, *1940, computer scientist
• "Mitleid ist eine der edelsten Regungen des Menschen, die an Aufrichtigkeit nur von der Schadenfreude übertroffen wird."
  -- Jürgen von der Lippe, comedian
• "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."
  -- Abraham Lincoln, April 6, 1859, Letter to Henry Pierce
• "Die meisten, wenn sie dich um Rat fragen, sind gewöhnlich schon entschlossen zu tun, was ihnen gefällt."
  -- Adolph Freiherr von Knigge
• "Wenn die Sonne der Kultur niedrig steht, werfen selbst Zwerge lange Schatten."
  -- Karl Kraus (1874-1936)
• "Es gibt nichts Schöneres, als dem Schweigen eines Dummkopfes zuzuhören."
  -- Helmut Qualtinger (1928-1986)
• "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
  -- a quote by Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) of which several variants exist
• "Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare any public into allowing the government to do anything with those four."
  -- Bruce Schneier (*1983)
• "The difference between architecture and art is restrooms."
  -- Unknown
• "A man who buys a piano, owns a piano."
  -- Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz (1903-1989), pianist
• "I knew right from the beginning that developing maximum force in any game would require concerted play with all available pieces at once. However, my actual problem was being undecided on what game to play. It took me a long time to realize that the game itself doesn't matter."
  -- M. (in 2009)
• "Wer auf die Welt gekommen ist, sie ernstlich und in den wichtigsten Dingen zu belehren, der kann von Glück sagen, wenn er mit heiler Haut davonkommt."
  -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
• "1a2a3a"
  -- Unknown
• "I still fail to see people's addiction to 'Real Life'. Sure, it has great graphics, but the plot is horrendous."
  -- Unknown