Time quotes

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Christopher_Wolfgang_Alexander

Time for Equilibrium

“Misfit provides an incentive to change; good fit provides none. In theory the process is eventually bound to reach the equilibrium of well-fitting forms. However, for the fit to occur in practice, one vital condition must be satisfied. It must have time to happen. The process must be able to achieve equilibrium before the next culture change upsets it again... The direct response is the feedback of the process. If the process is to maintain the good fit ... while the culture drifts, it needs a feedback sensitive enough to take action the moment that one of the potential failures actually occurs.”
Keywords: Design_quotes Incongruity_quotes Change_quotes Equilibrium_quotes Schedule_quotes Time_quotes Feedback_quotes Misfit_quotes Incentive_quotes Fit_quotes Theory_quotes Process_quotes Bound_quotes Form_quotes Practice_quotes Vital_quotes Condition_quotes Satisfy_quotes Time_quotes Happen_quotes Achieve_quotes Before_quotes Culture_quotes Upset_quotes Direct_quotes Response_quotes Maintain_quotes Drift_quotes Sensitive_quotes Action_quotes Potential_quotes Failure_quotes Occur_quotes

Rapid Change

“At the same time that problems increase in quantity, complexity, and difficulty, they also change faster than before.”
Keywords: Problem_quotes Size_quotes Complexity_quotes Fast_quotes Time_quotes Quantity_quotes Increase_quotes Difficulty_quotes Change_quotes

Time for Equilibrium

“Misfit provides an incentive to change; good fit provides none. In theory the process is eventually bound to reach the equilibrium of well-fitting forms. However, for the fit to occur in practice, one vital condition must be satisfied. It must have time to happen. The process must be able to achieve equilibrium before the next culture change upsets it again... The direct response is the feedback of the process. If the process is to maintain the good fit ... while the culture drifts, it needs a feedback sensitive enough to take action the moment that one of the potential failures actually occurs.”
Keywords: Design_quotes Incongruity_quotes Change_quotes Equilibrium_quotes Schedule_quotes Time_quotes Feedback_quotes Misfit_quotes Incentive_quotes Fit_quotes Theory_quotes Process_quotes Bound_quotes Form_quotes Practice_quotes Vital_quotes Condition_quotes Satisfy_quotes Time_quotes Happen_quotes Achieve_quotes Before_quotes Culture_quotes Upset_quotes Direct_quotes Response_quotes Maintain_quotes Drift_quotes Sensitive_quotes Action_quotes Potential_quotes Failure_quotes Occur_quotes

Marcus_Aurelius

Fame

“The most lasting fame will stretch but to a sorry extent; for, alas! poor transitory mortals who hand it down know little even of themselves, much less of those who died long before their time.”
Keywords: Fame_quotes Stretch_quotes Extent_quotes Transitory_quotes Mortal_quotes Hand_quotes Down_quotes Know_quotes Little_quotes Ignorance_quotes Death_quotes Time_quotes Predecessor_quotes

Present Time

“Every man's life lies all within the present, which is but a point of time; for the past is spent, and the future is uncertain.”
Keywords: Man_quotes Life_quotes Present_quotes Point_quotes Time_quotes Past_quotes Spent_quotes Future_quotes Uncertain_quotes

Jim_Baggott

The Veracity Principle

“The Veracity Principle. It is not possible to verify a scientific theory such that it provides absolute certainty for all time. A theory is instead accepted (or even tolerated), on the basis of its ability to survive the tests and meet additional criteria of simplicity, efficacy, utility, explanatory power and less rational, innately human measures such as beauty. Over time the theory becomes familiar and is accepted as ‘true’ or, at least, as possessing a high truth-likeness or verisimilitude. The scientists’ confidence or degree of belief in the theory grows. It is eventually absorbed into the common body of knowledge which forms the current ‘authorized’ version of empirical reality.”
  • Source: Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 22). Pegasus Books. New York, NY.
Keywords: Veracity_quotes Verification_quotes Principle_quotes Science_quotes Theory_quotes Certainty_quotes Acceptance_quotes Tolerance_quotes Ability_quotes Survival_quotes Simplicity_quotes Efficacy_quotes Utility_quotes Explanation_quotes Power_quotes Rational_quotes Human_quotes Measurement_quotes Beauty_quotes Time_quotes Truth_quotes Probability_quotes Likelihood_quotes Verisimilitude_quotes Confidence_quotes Belief_quotes Knowledge_quotes Authority_quotes Empirical_quotes Reality_quotes

Friedrich_Ludwig_Bauer

Tinkering versus Engineering

“The time has arrived to switch from home-made software to manufactured software, from tinkering to engineering.”
  • Source: Quoted in the book entitled Mechanizing Proof: Computing, Risk, and Trust by Donald Mackenzie. Published in 2001 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ISBN: 0262133938.
Keyword: Software_Engineering_quotes Programming_quotes Time_quotes Arrive_quotes Switch_quotes Home_quotes Make_quotes Software_quotes Manufacture_quotes Tinker_quotes Engineering_quotes

William_Bayliss

Mistakes

“But at the same time, there must never be the least hesitation in giving up a position the moment it is shown to be untenable. It is not going too far to say that the greatness of a scientific investigator does not rest on the fact of his having never made a mistake, but rather on his readiness to admit that he has done so, whenever the contrary evidence is cogent enough.”
  • Source: Sir William Bayliss, Principles of General Physiology (1915), x.xi.
Keywords: Mistake_quotes Error_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Ego_quotes Time_quotes Hesitation_quotes Give_quotes Position_quotes Moment_quotes Show_quotes Untenable_quotes Go_quotes Far_quotes Say_quotes Great_quotes Science_quotes Investigator_quotes Rest_quotes Fact_quotes Ready_quotes Admit_quotes Contrary_quotes Evidence_quotes Cogent_quotes

William_Ian_Beardmore_Beveridge

Role of Hypothesis

“The role of hypothesis in research can be discussed more effectively if we consider first some examples of discoveries which originated from hypotheses. One of the best illustrations of such a discovery is provided by the story of Christopher Columbus’ voyage; it has many of the features of a classic discovery in science. (a) He was obsessed with an idea—that since the world is round he could reach the Orient by sailing West, (b) the idea was by no means original, but evidently he had obtained some additional evidence from a sailor blown off his course who claimed to have reached land in the west and returned, (c) he met great difficulties in getting someone to provide the money to enable him to test his idea as well as in the actual carrying out of the experimental voyage, (d) when finally he succeeded he did not find the expected new route, but instead found a whole new world, (e) despite all evidence to the contrary he clung to the bitter end to his hypothesis and believed that he had found the route to the Orient, (f) he got little credit or reward during his lifetime and neither he nor others realized the full implications of his discovery, (g) since his time evidence has been brought forward showing that he was by no means the first European to reach America.”
  • Source: W. I. B. Beveridge in his book ‘The Art of Scientific Investigation’ published in 1950 by William Heinemann, London, page 41.
Keywords: Hypothesis_quotes Research_quotes Discovery_quotes Exploration_quotes Evidence_quotes Money_quotes Experiment_quotes Belief_quotes Perseverance_quotes Reward_quotes Role_quotes Disscussion_quotes Effective_quotes Consider_quotes Example_quotes Originate_quotes Best_quotes Illustration_quotes Provide_quotes Story_quotes Voyage_quotes Feature_quotes Classic_quotes Science_quotes Obsess_quotes Idea_quotes World_quotes Round_quotes Orient_quotes Sail_quotes Original_quotes Obtain_quotes Additional_quotes Sailor_quotes Blow_quotes Course_quotes Claim_quotes Reach_quotes Land_quotes Return_quotes Great_quotes Difficult_quotes Money_quotes Enable_quotes Test_quotes Find_quotes Expect_quotes Route_quotes Despite_quotes Contrary_quotes Cling_quotes Bitter_quotes End_quotes Little_quotes Credit_quotes Lifetime_quotes Realize_quotes Full_quotes Implication_quotes Time_quotes Show_quotes First_quotes European_quotes America_quotes

Niels_Bohr

Theory and Experiment

“When theory and experiment agree, that is the time to be especially suspicious.”
Keywords: Theory_quotes Experiment_quotes Confirmation_quotes Falsification_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Agree_quotes Time_quotes Especial_quotes Suspicious_quotes

Robert_N_Britcher

Up Front Time and Money

“Put enough time and money into any project, up front, and it will fail.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 187.
Keywords: Time_quotes Money_quotes Project_quotes Up_Front_quotes Failure_quotes Budget_quotes Front_quotes

Sources of Failures

“I never ran a test that didn't find at least one failure - not only is the software impure, but so are the requirements specifications. And every time we fix the software, there is a 10 percent chance - according to my anecdotal studies - we'll inject another fault. Those are the hardest to find: the faults that result from trying to get rid of them.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 56.
Keywords: Testing_quotes Failure_quotes Software_quotes Impurity_quotes Requirements_quotes Specification_quotes Repair_quotes Fix_quotes Fault_quotes Injection_quotes Hard_quotes Debugging_quotes Run_quotes Find_quotes Time_quotes Chance_quotes Anecdotal_quotes Study_quotes Result_quotes Try_quotes Rid_quotes

System Foresight

“No one can foresee how a system will unfold. No one gets it right the first time.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 154.
Keywords: Foresight_quotes Prediction_quotes Requirements_quotes Correctness_quotes First_Time_quotes System_quotes Unfold_quotes Right_quotes First_quotes Time_quotes

Fred_Brooks

Software Complexity

“Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. Much of the complexity he must master is arbitrary complexity, forced without rhyme or reason by the many human institutions and systems to which his interfaces must conform. These differ from interface to interface, and from time to time, not because of necessity but only because they were designed by different people, rather than by God.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (1995). The Mythical Man-Month - Essays on Software Engineering (Anniversary Edition) | 1975/1995 (Anniv.). Boston. MA: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 0201835959. Chapter 16, page 184.
Keywords: Complexity_quotes Software_quotes Nature_quotes Deity_quotes Faith_quotes System_quotes Interface_quotes Human_Limitations_quotes Design_quotes Software_Design_quotes Einstein(topic)_quotes Repeat_quotes Argue_quotes Simplify_quotes Explanation_quotes God_quotes Capricious_quotes Arbitrary_quotes Force_quotes Rhyme_quotes Reason_quotes Human_quotes Limit_quotes Institution_quotes Conform_quotes Different_quotes Time_quotes Necessary_quotes People_quotes

Edward_Bulwer-Lytton

The Few and the Many

"In science, address the few; in literature, the many. In science, the few must dictate opinion to the many; in literature, the many, sooner or later, force their judgment on the few. But the few and the many are not necessarily the few and the many of the passing time: for discoverers in science have not un-often, in their own day, had the few against them; and writers the most permanently popular not unfrequently found, in their own day, a frigid reception from the many. By the few, I mean those who must ever remain the few, from whose dieta we, the multitude, take fame upon trust; by the many, I mean those who constitute the multitude in the long-run. We take the fame of a Harvey or a Newton upon trust, from the verdict of the few in successive generations; but the few could never persuade us to take poets and novelists on trust. We, the many, judge for ourselves of Shakespeare and Cervantes."
  • Source: Earl Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners (1863), Vol. 2, 329- 30.
Keywords: Science_quotes Minority_quotes Majority_quotes Literature_quotes Opinion_quotes Judgment_quotes Time_quotes Influence_quotes Persuasion_quotes Popularity_quotes Fame_quotes Trust_quotes Few_quotes Dictate_quotes Force_quotes Discovery_quotes Against_quotes Opposition_quotes Writer_quotes Frigid_quotes Verdict_quotes Generation_quotes Poet_quotes Novelist_quotes

Almighty Dollar

"My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the earth."
  • Source: Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (1870), Chapter 1.
  • Notes: This is the origin of the phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar". Washington Irving coined the expression almighty dollar itself.
Keywords: Money_quotes Goal_quotes Earth_quotes Travel_quotes Pursuit_quotes Wandering_quotes Father_quotes Death_quotes Adventure_quotes Resign_quotes Time_quotes Almighty_quotes Dollar_quotes Face_quotes

Anthony_Burgess

Art Begins With Craft

“Art begins with craft, and there is no art until a craft has been mastered. You can't create unless you're willing to subordinate the creative impulse to the construction of a form. But the learning of a craft takes time, and we all think we're entitled to short cuts. Art is rare and sacred and hard work, and there ought to be a wall of fire around it.”
  • Source: Anthony Burgess (1986). But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop, and Other Writings, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Keywords: Art_quotes Craft_quotes Creativity_quotes Construction_quotes Learning_quotes Time_quotes Shortcut_quotes Rare_quotes Sacred_quotes Hard_quotes Difficulty_quotes Fire_quotes Wall_quotes Master_quotes Subordinate_quotes Impulse_quotes Form_quotes Work_quotes

Francis_Chisholm

Chisholm's 3rd Law of Human Interaction

“Chisholm's 3rd Law of Human Interaction. Purposes, as understood by the purposer, will be judged otherwise by others.
Corollary 1: If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
Corollary 2: If you do something which you are sure will meet with everybody’s approval, somebody won’t like it.
Corollary 3: Procedures devised to implement the purpose won’t quite work.
Corollary 4: No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening.”
  • Source: From the essay “The Chisholm Effect” by Francis P. Chisholm, included in the anthology “A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown: Essays for a Scientific Age” edited by Robert A. Baker, published by Prentice Hall in 1982. ISBN: 0138526087, ISBN: 978-0138526085.
Keywords: Law_quotes Chisholm(topic)_quotes Human_quotes Interaction_quotes Purpose_quotes Understood_quotes Judge_quotes Explain_quotes Clear_quotes Nobody_quotes Misunderstand_quotes Do_quotes Meet_quotes Everybody_quotes Approve_quotes Somebody_quotes Like_quotes Procedure_quotes Devise_quotes Implement_quotes Work_quotes Matter_quotes Long_quotes Time_quotes Listen_quotes

Winston Churchill

Democracy

“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
  • Source: Winston Churchill. Speech delivered 1947-11-11 to the U.K. House of Commons.
Keywords: Pretend_quotes Democracy_quotes Perfect_quotes Wise_quotes Worst_quotes Form_quotes Government_quotes Try_quotes Time_quotes

Alistair_Cockburn

People Characteristics

"People, as active devices, have success modes and failure modes. The following are the main ones that I have named and used to date:
1. People are communicating beings, doing best face-to-face, in person, with real-time question and answer.
2. People have trouble acting consistently over time.
3. People are highly variable, varying from day to day and place to place.
4. People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and doing 'whatever is needed' to get the project to work.
There are other characteristics that I won’t expand here:
- People need both think time and communicating opportunities...
- People work well from examples...
- People prefer to fail conservatively than to risk succeeding differently; prefer to invent than to research, can only keep a small amount in their heads, and do make mistakes, and find it hard to change their habits.
- Individual personalities easily dominate a project.
- A person’s personality profile strongly affects their ability to perform specific assignments."
Keywords: People_quotes Success_quotes Failure_quotes Communication_quotes Proximity_quotes Real_Time_quotes Question_quotes Consistency_quotes Time_quotes Variability_quotes Citizen_quotes Good_quotes Observation_quotes Flexibility_quotes Altruism_quotes Conservative_quotes Initiative_quotes Project_quotes Risk_quotes Differences_quotes Invention_quotes Innovation_quotes Research_quotes Thinking_quotes Habit_quotes Personality_quotes Ability_quotes Limitation_quotes Consciousness_quotes Cognition_quotes Mistake_quotes Hard_quotes Domination_quotes Assignment_quotes Active_quotes Device_quotes Mode_quotes Beings_quotes Face_quotes Person_quotes Answer_quotes Trouble_quotes Day_quotes Place_quotes Look_quotes Need_quotes Work_quotes Characteristic_quotes Opportunity_quotes Example_quotes Fail_quotes Head_quotes Change_quotes Profile_quotes Affect_quotes Perform_quotes

People First-Order Effect

"I finally concluded that there is something there, in front of us all the time, which we are not seeing: people. People’s characteristics are a first-order success driver, not a second-order one. In fact, I have reversed the order, and now consider process factors to be second-order issues."

Keywords: People_quotes Methodology_quotes Process_quotes Success_quotes Failure_quotes Conclude_quotes Front_quotes Time_quotes See_quotes Characteristic_quotes First-order_quotes Second-order_quotes Reverse_quotes Order_quotes Factor_quotes Software_quotes Development_quotes

Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

Mind Chaos

“Contrary to what we tend to assume, the normal state of the mind is chaos. Without training, and without an object in the external world that demands attention, people are unable to focus their thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time.”
  • Source: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience“, chapter “The Flow of Thought”, page 119. Original content published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 1990. Kindle edition published by Harper Collins in 2008. ISBN: 978-0061876721.
Keywords: Contrary_quotes Assume_quotes Normal_quotes State_quotes Mind_quotes Chaos_quotes Train_quotes Object_quotes External_quotes World_quotes Demand_quotes Attention_quotes People_quotes Unable_quotes Focus_quotes Thought_quotes Few_quotes Minute_quotes Time_quotes

Ray_Cummings

Time Happening

“The Big Business Man smiled. ‘Time,’ he said, ‘is what keeps everything from happening at once.’”
  • Alternative: “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.”
Keywords: Time_quotes Causality_quotes Business_quotes Smile_quotes Keep_quotes Happen_quotes Once_quotes Simultaneous_quotes Everything_quotes

Sam_Cutler

Americana

"The Grateful Dead didn't really care about, you know, having a particularly, commercially, successful record. And they certainly didn't care about making lots of money. ... something very interesting happened at the time that I joined them, not that it had anything to do with me I hasten to add, which was the Grateful Dead, I think, my view of it is, is that they were attempting to redefine, as every generation of American artists does, what it means to be an American artist. What in fact it means to be an American. Artists in America constantly struggled with this. They want to define what America is. They want to discover what America is. They want to find some clue to what it means to be American. Americans have got this very, very strange and interesting pre-occupation with the discovery of what constitutes America. What it is. In America, people leave home and go out in search of America. People in England don't set out and leave home and go in search of England. That would be quite preposterous."
  • Source: Sam Cutler, Documentary "Long Strange Trip", Episode 2, Act II.
Keywords: America_quotes Record_quotes Art_quotes Artists_quotes Commercial_quotes Money_quotes Discovery_quotes Search_quotes Absurdity_quotes Grateful_quotes Dead_quotes Care_quotes Success_quotes Time_quotes Redefine_quotes Generation_quotes Struggle_quotes Clue_quotes Constitute_quotes People_quotes Home_quotes England_quotes Preposterous_quotes

Edward_Emil_David

Software Engineer Training

"The problem of how the software engineers will get their practice is precisely the same as in other fields of engineering, and is insoluble. This is recognized in industry, where one makes sure that the young engineers coming in will get the proper kind of experience in time."
Keywords: Problem_quotes Software_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Engineering_quotes Programmer_quotes Practice_quotes Training_quotes Insoluble_quotes Industry_quotes Young_quotes Experience_quotes Time_quotes Field_quotes Proper_quotes

Tom_DeMarco and Tim_Lister

Seldom Manage That Way

"Most managers are willing to concede the idea that they’ve got more people worries than technical worries. But they seldom manage that way. They manage as though technology were their principal concern. They spend their time puzzling over the most convoluted and most interesting puzzles that their people will have to solve, almost as though they themselves were going to do the work rather than manage it. They are forever on the lookout for a technical whizbang that promises to automate away part of the work. The most strongly people-oriented aspects of their responsibility are often given the lowest priority."
  • Source: Book:: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 1 (Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing).
Keywords: Manager_quotes People_quotes Worry_quotes Technology_quotes Seldom_quotes Principal_quotes Concern_quotes Time_quotes Puzzle_quotes Convoluted_quotes Solution_quotes Delegation_quotes Trust_quotes Work_quotes Management_quotes Whizbang_quotes Automation_quotes Development_quotes Project_quotes Responsibility_quotes Priority_quotes Concede_quotes Idea_quotes Interesting_quotes Lookout_quotes Promise_quotes Aspect_quotes

Frank_Drake

Drake Equation

    N = R* ⋅ ƒp ⋅ ne ⋅ ƒl ⋅ ƒi ⋅ ƒc ⋅ L

  where

    • N  = the number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy
           with which communication might be possible.
    • R* = the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy.
    • ƒp = the fraction of those stars that have planets.
    • ne = the average number of planets that can potentially
           support life per star that has planets.
    • ƒl = the fraction of planets that could support life
           that actually develops life at some point.
    • ƒi = the fraction of planets with life that go on to
           develop intelligent life (civilizations).
    • ƒc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a
           technology that releases detectable signs of
           their existence into space.
    • L =  the length of time for which such civilizations
           release detectable signals into space.
  • Notes: The original form of the equation was written by Frank Drake in 1960 in preparation for a work meeting at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)in Green Bank, West Virginia. However, he did not formally publish the equation until 1961 (see above).
Keywords: Drake(topic)_quotes Equation_quotes Civilization_quotes Milky_Way_quotes Galaxy_quotes Extraterrestrial_quotes Life_quotes Alien_quotes Communication_quotes Possibility_quotes Rate_quotes Star_quotes Formation_quotes Fraction_quotes Planet_quotes Intelligent_quotes Technology_quotes Detectable_quotes Sign_quotes Length_quotes Time_quotes Space_quotes Signal_quotes Existence_quotes

Peter_Drucker

Drucker's Law

“Engineers speak half–jokingly about Murphy's Law: 'If anything can go wrong, it will.' But complexity stands under a second law as well. Let me call it Drucker's law: 'If one thing goes wrong, everything else will, and at the same time.'”
  • Source: Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New York: Harper & Row, 1973. p. 681.
Keywords: Engineering_quotes Speak_quotes Half_quotes Joke_quotes Murphy_quotes Law_quotes Anything_quotes Wrong_quotes Will_quotes Complexity_quotes Stand_quotes Second_quotes Call_quotes Drucker_quotes One_quotes Everything_quotes Same_quotes Time_quotes Murphy(topic)_quotes

Arthur_Eddington

Brain and Mind

“Take the living human brain endowed with mind and thought. Thought it is one of the indisputable facts of the world. I know that I think, with a certainty which I cannot attribute to any of my physical knowledge of the world. More hypothetically, but on fairly plausible evidence, I am convinced that you have minds which think. Here then is a world fact to be investigated. The physicist brings his tools and commences systematic exploration. All that he discovers is a collection of atoms and electrons and fields of force arranged in space and time, apparently similar to those found in inorganic objects. He may trace other physical characteristics, energy, temperature, entropy. None of these is identical with thought. He might set down thought as an illusion ⎯ some perverse interpretation of the interplay of the physical entities that he has found. Or if he sees the folly of calling the most undoubted element of our experience an illusion, he will have to face the tremendous question, How can this collection of ordinary atoms be a thinking machine?”
Keywords: Brain_quotes Mind_quotes Thinking_quotes Fact_quotes Indisputable_quotes World_quotes Knowledge_quotes Certainty_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Plausible_quotes Evidence_quotes Physics_quotes Tool_quotes Systematic_quotes Exploration_quotes Discovery_quotes Atom_quotes Electron_quotes Field_quotes Space_quotes Time_quotes Energy_quotes Physical_quotes Materialism_quotes Temperature_quotes Entropy_quotes Illusion_quotes Perversity_quotes Interpretation_quotes Interplay_quotes Folly_quotes Experience_quotes Question_quotes Human_quotes Think_quotes Find_quotes Entity_quotes Undoubted_quotes Element_quotes Machine_quotes

Max_Ehrmann

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
  • Source: Max Ehrmann [Poem/Author]; 2022/1948/1933/1927 [Dates];
    • 2022 [Book/Version/Date]; “Desiderata” [Title]; Samantha Seebeck [Editor]; Independent [Publisher]; 979-8420409275 [ISBN];
    • 1948 [Book/Version/Date]; Bertha K. Ehrmann [Editor]; Bruce Humphries, Inc. [Publisher/Name]; Boston, MA [Publisher/Location]; First [Edition]; “Desiderata” [Book/Section/Title];
    • 1933-04-05 [Magazine/Version/Date]; “Desiderata” [Title]; Michigan Tradesman [Magazine/Name]; Cover [Magazine/Placement];
    • 1927 [Copyright/Date];
    • 1927/2023 [URL/Version]; WikiSource Desiderate 1927 Version at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Desiderata [URL/Link]; 2023 [URL/Retrieved/Date]
Keywords: Composure_quotes Noise_quotes Peace_quotes Silence_quotes Friendliness_quotes Truth_quotes Honesty_quotes Communication_quotes Listening_quotes Ignorance_quotes Story_quotes Aggression_quotes Avoidance_quotes Spirituality_quotes Competition_quotes Vanity_quotes Bitterness_quotes Achievement_quotes Pleasure_quotes Plan_quotes Career_quotes Humility_quotes Time_quotes Business_quotes Deception_quotes Virtue_quotes Heroism_quotes Affection_quotes Cynacism_quotes Love_quotes Disenchantment_quotes Advice_quotes Age_quotes Youth_quotes Maturity_quotes Surrender_quotes Strength_quotes Shield_quotes Misfortune_quotes Imagination_quotes Fear_quotes Fatigue_quotes Loneliness_quotes Discipline_quotes Gentleness_quotes Self_Care_quotes Universe_quotes Children_quotes Tree_quotes Star_quotes Validation_quotes Rights_quotes Destiny_quotes Future_quotes Deity_quotes Labor_quotes Desire_quotes Sham_quotes Drudgery_quotes Dreaming_quotes World_quotes Appreciation_quotes Happiness_quotes Optimism_quotes Cheerfulness_quotes Wisdom_quotes

Albert_Einstein

Illusion of Comprehension

“Time and again the passion for understanding has led to the illusion that man is able to comprehend the objective world rationally by pure thought without any empirical foundations — in short, by metaphysics.”
  • Source: Albert Einstein, ‘On the Generalised Theory of Gravitation’, Scientific American, April 1950, p. 182.
Keywords: Time_quotes Passion_quotes Understanding_quotes Illusion_quotes Man_quotes Comprehension_quotes Objectivity_quotes World_quotes Rational_quotes Pure_quotes Thinking_quotes Empirical_quotes Foundation_quotes Short_quotes Metaphysics_quotes

English_Proverbs

Fooling People

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Keywords: Fool_quotes All_quotes People_quotes Time_quotes

David_Epstein

Giant Undertakings

“Since the 1990s, researcher Bent Flyvbjerg has kept a database that tracks giant undertakings... Only 8.5 percent of projects finished on time and on budget; 0.5 percent did that and delivered the prophesied benefits. Almost every major infrastructure project goes over budget, but at least not by as much as IT projects, which have a greater tendency to go hundreds of percent over budget. The pattern of disaster that Flyvbjerg has documented is relatively simple: With few constraints, exciting projects get too large too fast, going from big idea to giant endeavor extremely quickly.”
  • Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 14. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
Keywords: Since_quotes Research_quotes Database_quotes Track_quotes Giant_quotes Undertaking_quotes Percent_quotes Project_quotes Finish_quotes Time_quotes Budget_quotes Deliver_quotes Prophecy_quotes Benefit_quotes Major_quotes Infrastructure_quotes Go_quotes Information_Technology_quotes Great_quotes Tendency_quotes Hundred_quotes Over_quotes Pattern_quotes Disaster_quotes Documentation_quotes Relative_quotes Simple_quotes Few_quotes Constraint_quotes Excited_quotes Large_quotes Fast_quotes Big_quotes Idea_quotes Endeavor_quotes Quick_quotes

Richard_Feynman

Cargo Cult

“...there have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on — with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train rats to go to the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the door where the food had been the time before. The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe they were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still the rats could tell. He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to learn to go to the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions, the rats could tell. Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it uncovers the clues that the rat is really using — not what you think it's using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use in order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with rat-running. I looked into the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or of being very careful. They just went right on running rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic of cargo cult science.”
  • Source: "Cargo Cult Science", adapted from a 1974 Caltech commencement address; also published in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, p. 345.
    • Feynman, R. P. (1974). In Feynman, R. P. (1974, June). Cargo Cult Science. Science and Engineering.
Keywords: Cargo_quotes Cult_quotes Experiment_quotes Rat_quotes Maze_quotes Result_quotes Door_quotes Smell_quotes Sight_quotes Sound_quotes Clue_quotes Control_quotes Attention_quotes Ignore_quotes Ignorance_quotes Discovery_quotes Corridor_quotes Food_quotes Train_quotes Immediate_quotes Time_quotes Question_quotes Know_quotes Uniform_quotes Obvious_quotes Different_quotes Paint_quotes Arrange_quotes Texture_quotes Face_quotes Think_quotes Chemical_quotes Change_quotes Run_quotes Realize_quotes Light_quotes Laboratory_quotes Common_quotes Sense_quotes Person_quotes Cover_quotes Floor_quotes Fool_quotes Relax_quotes Condition_quotes Science_quotes Standpoint_quotes Uncover_quotes Careful_quotes Look_quotes History_quotes Research_quotes Refer_quotes Criteria_quotes Sand_quotes Old_quotes Fact_quotes Characteristic_quotes

Ronald_Fisher

Fisher's Theorem of Natural Selection

“The rate of increase in the mean fitness of any organism at any time ascribable to natural selection acting through changes in gene frequencies is exactly equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time”
  • Source: Ronald Aylmer Fisher in the book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, published in 1930 by Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Keywords: Evolution_quotes Fitness_quotes Organism_Quotes Natural_Selection_quotes Genetics_quotes Gene_quotes Theorem_quotes Rate_quotes Increase_quotes Mean_quotes Ascribe_quotes Act_quotes Change_quotes Frequency_quotes Exact_quotes Variance_quotes Time_quotes

Samuel_C_Florman

Despair

“From the beginning of recorded time, we find evidence of despair, melancholy, and ennui. We find also an abundance of greed, treachery, vulgarity, and stupidity. Absorbed as we are in our own problems, we tend to forget how replete history is with wars, feuds, floods, plagues, fires, massacres, tortures, slavery, the wasting of cities, and the destruction of libraries.”
  • Source: From the book “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” by {Samuel C. Florman}. Second edition published in 1994 by {St. Martin's Press}, New York, NY. First edition published in 1976. Kindle edition published in 2023. E-book ISBN 978-1466842366. Chapter 6, page 74.
Keywords: Beginning_quotes Record_quotes Time_quotes Find_quotes Evidence_quotes Despair_quotes Melancholy_quotes Ennui_quotes Abundance_quotes Greed_quotes Treachery_quotes Vulgarity_quotes Stupidity_quotes Absorb_quotes Problem_quotes Forget_quotes Replete_quotes History_quotes War_quotes Feud_quotes Flood_quotes Plague_quotes Fire_quotes Massacre_quotes Torture_quotes Slavery_quotes Waste_quotes City_quotes Destruction_quotes Library_quotes

Stephen_Hawking

Imaginary Reality

“One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So, what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds?”
  • Source: Hawking, Stephen in the book “The Universe in a Nutshell”, p. 59 (2001).
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Meaning_quotes Imaginary_quotes Mathematics_quotes Game_quotes Reality_quotes World_quotes Viewpoint_quotes Positivist_quotes Philosophy_quotes Determine_quotes Real_quotes Find_quotes Model_quotes Describe_quotes Universe_quotes Live_quotes Involve_quotes Number_quotes Time_quotes Prediction_quotes Effect_quotes Observation_quotes Measurement_quotes Believe_quotes Reason_quotes Distinction_quotes Mind_quotes

Robert_Heinlein

Teach a Pig

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
  • Source: Written by Robert A. Heinlein in the book “Time Enough for Love”, published in 1973 by Putnam's Sons, ISBN: 0-399-11151-4. Prelude II, page 31. Character: Lazarus Long.
Keywords: Attempt_quotes Teach_quotes Sing_quotes Waste_quotes Time_quotes Annoy_quotes Pig_quotes

Douglas_Hofstadter

Contradiction Bundle

“We all are bundles of contradictions, and we manage to hang together by bringing out only one side of ourselves at a given time.”
  • Source: Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Written by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Basic Books, New York, NY. ISBN 13: 978-046502656-2. ISBN 10: 046502656-7. Chapter 12. Page 383.
Keywords: Bundle_quotes Contradiction_quotes Hang_quotes Together_quotes Bring_quotes One_quotes Side_quotes Self_quotes Time_quotes

Grace_Hopper

Microsecond Nanosecond

“In total desperation, I called over to the engineering building, and I said, 'Please cut off a nanosecond and send it over to me'... At the end of about a week, I called back and said, 'I need something to compare this to. Could I please have a microsecond?”
  • Source: On demonstrating a billionth and then millionth of a second of electricity travel by cutting a piece of wire, in an interview on the CBS television program 60 Minutes (24 August 1986).
Keywords: Time_quotes Desperation_quotes Call_quotes Engineering_quotes Nanosecond_quotes Send_quotes Compare_quotes Microsecond_quotes

Past and Future

“I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.”
  • Source: As quoted in The Reader's Digest, October 1994, p. 185.
Keywords: Time_quotes History_quotes Past_quotes Future_quotes

Listen to Juniors

“I had to give a presentation... All Admirals and Generals. I had to remind those gentlemen that they've had piles of big reports sitting on their desks that they had to read and absorb. Big decisions that they had to make. And they had not had time to keep up with the technology which was changing overnight. And therefore, they were going to have to learn to listen to their juniors.”
  • Source: Grace Hopper in a lecture delivered 1982-08-19 at the NSA (National Security Agency). Video available at YouTube as “NSA Releases Internal 1982 Lecture by Computing Pioneer Rear Admiral Grace Hopper”, channel The Black Vault Originals, online at <https://youtu.be/_bP14OzIJWI?si=wcUTl04b4p4scY6k>, posted 2024-08, retrieved 2024-08. Quote in video at 25:55.
Keywords: Presentation_quotes Admiral_quotes General_quotes Remind_quotes Gentleman_quotes Pile_quotes Report_quotes Desk_quotes Read_quotes Absorb_quotes Decision_quotes Make_quotes Time_quotes Keep_quotes Technology_quotes Change_quotes Overnight_quotes Learn_quotes Listen_quotes Junior_quotes

Never Take First No

“Never, never, never take the first no. There are a certain number of people in business, industry, and government who always say no the first time you suggest something new, because they're lazy. And if they say yes, they're going to have to do something about it. But there's another group, they are even more dangerous in a way, who always say no the first time you say something new or different because they want to see if you believe in it enough to come back and ask again. So never take the first no. Always go back and ask again. As a matter of fact, I take about four no's and then I figure out how to get around the guy, but that technique comes with age. I ran into one of these guys... I noticed he always said no to things the first time. So the next time I went in to suggest something I said ‘let's pretend this is the second time I'm presenting this’. I said, ‘you always say no the first time’. And he looked at me with the funniest expression. I had him over the barrel from then on because I'd just go and say, ‘this is the fourth time I'm requesting this, let's just say yes now’. So never, never, never take the first no on a new concept. It's terribly important that we listen to our youngsters.”
  • Source: Grace Hopper in a lecture delivered 1982-08-19 at the NSA (National Security Agency). Video available at YouTube as “NSA Releases Internal 1982 Lecture by Computing Pioneer Rear Admiral Grace Hopper”, channel The Black Vault Originals, online at <https://youtu.be/_bP14OzIJWI?si=wcUTl04b4p4scY6k>, posted 2024-08, retrieved 2024-08. Quote in video at 26:28.
Keywords: Never_quotes First_quotes Yes_quotes No_quotes Certain_quotes People_quotes Business_quotes Industry_quotes Government_quotes Always_quotes Say_quotes Time_quotes Suggest_quotes New_quotes Lazy_quotes Do_quotes Another_quotes Group_quotes Dangerous_quotes Different_quotes See_quotes Believe_quotes Enough_quotes Come_quotes Back_quotes Ask_quotes Figure_quotes Around_quotes Guy_quotes Technique_quotes Age_quotes Pretend_quotes Second_quotes Present_quotes Look_quotes Funny_quotes Expression_quotes Over_quotes Barrel_quotes Fourth_quotes Request_quotes Now_quotes Concept_quotes Terrible_quotes Important_quotes Listen_quotes Youngster_quotes

Sabine_Hossenfelder

Quantum Opinion

“I think we need a political quantum orientation so that you can hold all political positions at the same time as long as no one asks.”
Keywords: Opinion_quotes Think_quotes Need_quotes Political_quotes Quantum_quotes Orientation_quotes Hold_quotes Position_quotes Same_quotes Time_quotes Ask_quotes

M_King_Hubbert

Principle of Uniformity

“[The] first postulate of the Principle of Uniformity, namely, that the laws of nature are invariant with time, is not peculiar to that principle or to geology, but is a common denominator of all science. In fact, instead of being an assumption or an ad hoc hypothesis, it is simply a succinct summation of the totality of all experimental and observational evidence.”
  • Source: Marion King Hubbert, 'Critique of the Principle of Uniformity', in C. C. Albritton (ed.), Uniformity and Simplicity (1967), 29.
Keywords: Postulate_quotes Principle_quotes Uniformity_quotes Nature_quotes Law_quotes Invariant_quotes Time_quotes Geology_quotes Science_quotes Assumption_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Experiment_quotes Observation_quotes Evidence_quotes

Victor_Hugo

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”
  • Source: Histoire d'un crime (History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness). 1877. English version 1878, London, publisher Sampson Low.
Keywords: Idea_quotes Army_quotes Resistance_quotes Time_quotes Invasion_quotes

Aldous_Huxley

Control and Consent

“If you are going to control a population for any length of time you must have some measure of consent.”
  • Source: Aldous Huxley (1962). Lecture at UC Berkeley. Partial recorded audio in the YouTube video entitled Love Your Servitude - Aldous Huxley & George Orwell published 2021-02 on the After Skool channel.
Keywords: Control_quotes Population_quotes Time_quotes Consent_quotes

Bayonets and Consent

“You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them. Even a despot cannot govern for any length of time without the consent of his subjects.”
  • Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Writers and Readers within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Keywords: Bayonet_quotes Sitting_quotes Despot_quotes Autocracy_quotes Government_quotes Time_quotes Consent_quotes Subject_quotes

Best Art

“In the best art we perceive persons, things and situations more clearly than in life and as though they were in some way more real than realities themselves. But this clearer perception is at the same time less personal and egotistic. Writers who permit their readers to see in this intense but impersonal way exercise an influence which, though not easily definable, is certainly profound and salutary.”
  • Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Writers and Readers within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Keywords: Best_quotes Art_quotes Perception_quotes Person_quotes Situation_quotes Clear_quotes Life_quotes Reality_quotes Time_quotes Personal_quotes Ego_quotes Writing_quotes Reading_quotes Permission_quotes Exercise_quotes Influence_quotes Impersonal_quotes Definition_quotes Profound_quotes Salutary_quotes

Time Tyrant

“Time is our tyrant. We are chronically aware of the moving minute hand, even of the moving second hand. We have to be. There are trains to be caught, clocks to be punched, tasks to be done in specified periods, records to be broken by fractions of a second, machines that set the pace and have to be kept up with. Our consciousness of the smallest units of time is now acute. To us, for example, the moment 8.17 a.m. means something — something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance — did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stevenson were part inventors of time.”
  • Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Time and the Machine within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Keywords: Time_quotes Tyrant_quotes Chronic_quotes Aware_quotes Hand_quotes Train_quotes Clock_quotes Task_quotes Period_quotes Record_quotes Fraction_quotes Machine_quotes Pace_quotes Consciousness_quotes Unit_quotes Acute_quotes Start_quotes Daily_quotes Ancestor_quotes Eccentric_quotes Instant_quotes Significance_quotes Existence_quotes Invention_quotes Locomotive_quotes Watt_quotes Stevenson_quotes

Time Awareness Paradox

“This brings us to a seeming paradox. Acutely aware of the smallest constituent particles of time — of time, as measured by clock-work and train arrivals and the revolutions of machines — industrialized man has to a great extent lost the old awareness of time in its larger divisions.”
  • Source: Aldous Huxley (1936). An essay entitled Time and the Machine within the book The Olive Tree and Other Essays, published by Harper and Brothers, ASIN: B08VNTBLY4.
Keywords: Paradox_quotes Acute_quotes Particle_quotes Constituent_quotes Time_quotes Clock_quotes Train_quotes Arrive_quotes Revolution_quotes Machine_quotes Industrial_quotes Aware_quotes Division_quotes

Thomas_Jefferson

Tree of Liberty

“What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
  • Source: Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Stevens Smith dated 1787-11-12.
Keywords: Country_quotes Exist_quotes Century_quotes Rebellion_quotes Tree_quotes Liberty_quotes Refresh_quotes Time_quotes Blood_quotes Patriot_quotes Tyrant_quotes Natural_quotes Manure_quotes

Carl_Jung

Laughter and Worship

“Do you believe, man of this time, that laughter is lower than worship? Where is your measure, false measurer?”
  • Source: Written by Carl G. Jung in ‘The Red Book’, also known as ‘Liber Novus’, which was originally written from 1914 to 1930. It was first published in 2009 by W. W. Norton in a facsimile edition, complete with an English translation. The edition used here is the book ‘The Red Book: Liber Novus: A Reader's Edition’, written by C. G. Jung, edited with an introduction by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani; published by W. W. Norton in 2012; ISBN 978-0393089080; Page 122.
  • Note: Here Jung is recounting an imaginal encounter with his inner figures, during which these words were uttered by the ‘spirit of the depths’.
Keywords: Believe_quotes Man_quotes Time_quotes Laughter_quotes Lower_quotes Worship_quotes Measure_quotes False_quotes

Lost Path

“Time and again I lost the path and found it again where I would never have foreseen it.”
  • Source: Written by Carl G. Jung in ‘The Red Book’, also known as ‘Liber Novus’, which was originally written from 1914 to 1930. It was first published in 2009 by W. W. Norton in a facsimile edition, complete with an English translation. The edition used here is the book ‘The Red Book: Liber Novus: A Reader's Edition’, written by C. G. Jung, edited with an introduction by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani; published by W. W. Norton in 2012; ISBN 978-0393089080; Page 132.
Keywords: Time_quotes Again_quotes Lost_quotes Path_quotes Find_quotes Never_quotes Foresee_quotes

Johannes_Kepler

Time Will Prove and Refute

“Some things will be said which time will prove, but many things will be refuted by time and experience as vain and worthless...”
  • Source: Johannes Kepler in “Concerning the More Certain Fundamentals of Astrology”, Thesis 2 (p. 3), Clancy Publications, Inc. 1942.
Keywords: Some_quotes Thing_quotes Say_quotes Time_quotes Prove_quotes Refute_quotes Experience_quotes Vain_quotes Worthless_quotes

John_Maynard_Keynes

Slow Progress

“From the earliest times of which we have record — back, say, to two thousand years before Christ [BCE 2000] down to the beginning of the eighteenth century [CE 1700] — there was no very great change in the standard of life of the average man living in the civilised centres of the earth... This slow rate of progress, or lack of progress, was due to two reasons — to the remarkable absence of important technical improvements and to the failure of capital to accumulate.”
  • Source: From the Essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” written by John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Included in the book “Essays in Persuasion” edited by John Maynard Keynes and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1963.
Keywords: Early_quotes Time_quotes Record_quotes Ancient_quotes Century_quotes Pre-industrial_quotes Industrial_quotes Change_quotes Standard_quotes Life_quotes Living_quotes Civilization_quotes Center_quotes Earth_quotes Slow_quotes Rate_quotes Progress_quotes Lack_quotes Due_quotes Causality_quotes Reason_quotes Remarkable_quotes Absence_quotes Important_quotes Technology_quotes Improvement_quotes Failure_quotes Capital_quotes Accumulate_quotes

Purpose and Immortality

“The ‘purposive’ man is always trying to secure a spurious and delusive immortality for his acts by pushing his interest in them forward into time. He does not love his cat, but his cat’s kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens’ kittens, and so on forward forever to the end of cat-dom. For him jam is not jam unless it is a case of jam tomorrow and never jam today.”
  • Source: From the Essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” written by John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Included in the book “Essays in Persuasion” edited by John Maynard Keynes and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1963.
Keywords: Purpose_quotes Man_quotes Try_quotes Secure_quotes Spurious_quotes Delusion_quotes Immortal_quotes Act_quotes Push_quotes Interest_quotes Forward_quotes Time_quotes Love_quotes Cat_quotes Kitten_quotes Truth_quotes Forever_quotes End_quotes Jam_quotes Case_quotes Tomorrow_quotes Today_quotes Human_quotes

Hollis_A_Kinslow

System Problems

“There are two classes of system designers. The first, if given five problems will solve them one at a time. The second will come back and announce that these aren’t the real problems, and will eventually propose a solution to the single problem which underlies the original five. This is the ‘system type’ who is great during the initial stages of a design project. However, you had better get rid of him after the first six months if you want to get a working system.”
Keywords: Design_quotes System_quotes Problem_quotes Compliance_quotes Creativity_quotes Optimal_quotes Analysis_Paralysis_quotes Project_quotes Class_quotes Solve_quotes Time_quotes Announce_quotes Real_quotes Propose_quotes Solution_quotes Underlie_quotes Initial_quotes Stage_quotes Rid_quotes Work_quotes

David_Kipping

Rendered Reality

“Reality could be rendered in real-time locally to deceive the inhabitants, rather than attempting to generate the entire system at once. Indeed, quantum systems need not truly be emulated, only our perceived observations of those systems, which may be far easier.”
  • Source: David Kipping from the paper “A Bayesian Approach to the Simulation Argument”, published 2020 in the journal ‘Universe’, volume 6, issue 8. DOI:10.3390/universe6080109. Online at https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/6/8/109 (2025).
Keywords: Simulation_quotes Reality_quotes Render_quotes Real_quotes Time_quotes Local_quotes Deception_quotes Inhabitant_quotes Attempt_quotes Generate_quotes Entire_quotes System_quotes Once_quotes Quantum_quotes Need_quotes Emulate_quotes True_quotes Perception_quotes Observation_quotes Far_quotes Easy_quotes

Simulated Time

“Within the simulated realities, time itself is a construct.”
  • Source: David Kipping from the paper “A Bayesian Approach to the Simulation Argument”, published 2020 in the journal ‘Universe’, volume 6, issue 8. DOI:10.3390/universe6080109. Online at https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/6/8/109 (2025).
Keywords: Simulation_quotes Reality_quotes Time_quotes Construct_quotes

Kenneth_W_Kolence

Software Engineer

“There are people who call themselves software engineers, and who build software systems that other people trust their lives to that software. So a great deal of progress has really been made since 1962 (when I first began considering myself as a software engineer) and in that respect toward what may be considered as a valid engineering capability. ... Using the term [Software Engineering] ... actually did, for the first time, provide programmers with a more professional description of what they were trying to do. In my opinion, that was a very good thing.”
Keywords: People_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Programming_quotes Trust_quotes Life_quotes Software_quotes Progress_quotes Engineering_quotes Validity_quotes Capability_quotes Professional_quotes Build_quotes Term_quotes First_quotes Time_quotes Provide_quotes

Large System Evolution

“Large systems must evolve, and cannot be produced all at one time. You must have an initial small core system that works really well.”
Keywords: Large_quotes System_quotes Evolution_quotes Production_quotes Incremental_quotes Concurrent_quotes Time_quotes Small_quotes Core_quotes Quality_quotes Initial_quotes Work_quotes Well_quotes

Lawrence_M_Krauss

Think the Unthinkable

“Science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide—rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.”
  • Source: Lawrence M. Krauss, In op-ed, 'A Universe Without Purpose', Los Angeles Times (1 Apr 2012).
Keywords: Science_quotes Thinking_quotes Unthinkable_quotes Nature_quotes Guide_quotes A_Priori_quotes Hope_quotes Fear_quotes Desire_quotes Force_quotes Comfort_quotes Pillar_quotes Logic_quotes Fall_quotes Progress_quotes Measurement_quotes Realization_quotes Space_quotes Time_quotes Absolute_quotes Observation_quotes Dependence_quotes Quantum_quotes Mechanics_quotes Fundamental_quotes Limitation_quotes Empirical_quotes Demonstration_quotes Elementary_quotes Particle_quotes Atom_quotes Impossibility_quotes Concurrent_quotes Teach_quotes Prejudice_quotes Classical_quotes Einstein(topic)_quotes Know_quotes

Pierre-Simon_Laplace

System of Nature

“The present state of the system of nature is evidently a consequence of what it was in the preceding moment, and if we conceive of an intelligence that at a given instant comprehends all the relations of the entities of this universe, it could state the respective position, motions, and general affects of all these entities at any time in the past or future. Physical astronomy, the branch of knowledge that does the greatest honor to the human mind, gives us an idea, albeit imperfect, of what such an intelligence would be. The simplicity of the law by which the celestial bodies move, and the relations of their masses and distances, permit analysis to follow their motions up to a certain point; and in order to determine the state of the system of these great bodies in past or future centuries, it suffices for the mathematician that their position and their velocity be given by observation for any moment in time. Man owes that advantage to the power of the instrument he employs, and to the small number of relations that it embraces in its calculations. But ignorance of the different causes involved in the production of events, as well as their complexity, taken together with the imperfection of analysis, prevents our reaching the same certainty about the vast majority of phenomena. Thus there are things that are uncertain for us, things more or less probable, and we seek to compensate for the impossibility of knowing them by determining their different degrees of likelihood. So it was that we owe to the weakness of the human mind one of the most delicate and ingenious of mathematical theories, the science of chance or probability.”
  • Source: Pierre-Simon Laplace, 'Recherches, 1º, sur l'Intégration des Équations Différentielles aux Différences Finies, et sur leur Usage dans la Théorie des Hasards' (1773, published 1776). In Oeuvres complètes de Laplace, 14 Vols. (1843-1912), Vol. 8, 144-5, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 26.
Keywords: State_quotes Present_quotes System_quotes Nature_quotes Consequence_quotes Moment_quotes Precede_quotes Conceive_quotes Intelligence_quotes Instant_quotes Comprehension_quotes Relationship_quotes Universe_quotes Position_quotes Motion_quotes Causality_quotes Time_quotes Past_quotes Future_quotes Astronomy_quotes Knowledge_quotes Humanity_quotes Mind_quotes Idea_quotes Imperfect_quotes Law_quotes Celestial_quotes Body_quotes Mass_quotes Distance_quotes Analysis_quotes Determine_quotes Century_quotes Mathematics_quotes Velocity_quotes Observation_quotes Advantage_quotes Power_quotes Instrument_quotes Calculation_quotes Ignorance_quotes Cause_quotes Production_quotes Event_quotes Complexity_quotes Certainty_quotes Majority_quotes Phenomena_quotes Probability_quotes Impossibility_quotes Likelihood_quotes Weakness_quotes Theory_quotes Chance_quotes

Seth_Lloyd

Information and Computation

“So, just as it is real to say that the universe is made out of electrons and electromagnetic fields and photons and elementary particles, the universe is also really made out of information and the way the universe changes over time is really a computation.”'
  • Source: Spoken by Seth Lloyd during a video interview. Contained in a video entitled Seth Lloyd - What is Information?. Posted on Youtube channel Closer to Truth. Posted 2019-12-05. Video location circa 9:30. Online at https://youtu.be/u8VdPW8tCWY.
Keywords: Reality_quotes Universe_quotes Electron_quotes Electromagnetism_quotes Field_quotes Photon_quotes Element_quotes Particle_quotes Information_quotes Change_quotes Time_quotes Computation_quotes Causality_quotes Computed_Reality_quotes Simulation_quotes

Michael_Sean_Mahoney

Undefined Software Engineering

“If one could not define 'software engineering' at the time, neither could one point to its practice. It was not coined to characterize an ongoing activity but rather to express a desire for one.”
  • Source: Michael S. Mahoney in a paper entitled The Roots of Software Engineering. Published 1990 in CWI Quarterly, volume 3, number 4.
Keywords: Definition_quotes Software_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Engineering_quotes Time_quotes Practice_quotes Coin_quotes Activity_quotes Desire_quotes

Karl_Marx

Product of Mental Labor is Science

“The product of mental labor — science — always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.”
  • Source: Addenda, "Relative and Absolute Surplus Value" in Economic Manuscripts (1861-63)
Keywords: Science_quotes Labor_quotes Mind_quotes Thinking_quotes Value_quotes Time_quotes Effort_quotes Production_quotes Product_quotes Mental_quotes Below_quotes Reproduce_quotes Relation_quotes Original_quotes

Robert_M_McClure

Time and Motion Code

“I know of one organisation that attempts to apply time and motion standards to the output of programmers. They judge a programmer by the amount of code he produces. This is guaranteed to produce insipid code”
Keywords: Organization_quotes Time_quotes Motion_quotes Metric_quotes Productivity_quotes Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Code_quotes Amount_quotes Guarantee_quotes Insipid_quotes Standard_quotes Output_quotes Judge_quotes

Henry_Louis_Mencken

Explanations

“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”
  • Source: In the article entitled 'The Divine Afflatus' by Henry Louis Mencken, published in the New York Evening Mail, 16 November 1917.
Keywords: Explanation_quotes Existence_quotes Time_quotes Knowledge_quotes Solution_quotes Problem_quotes Humanity_quotes Neat_quotes Plausible_quotes Wrong_quotes

Ronald_Dowl_Moore

Love Time

“There comes a time when a man finds that he can't fall in love again. He knows that it's time to stop.”
  • Source: From the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” season 6 episode 4 entitled “Relics”. Screenplay written by Ronald Dowl Moore. Directed by Alexander Singer. Words spoken by the character Montgomery Scott (Scotty) played by the actor James Doohan.
Keywords: Time_quotes Man_quotes Find_quotes Fall_quotes Love_quotes Again_quotes Know_quotes Stop_quotes

David_E_Nye

People Demand Speed

“People demand speed and immediacy, a maximum of experience in a minimum of time.”
  • Source: A book. Written by David E. Nye. Entitled 'Narratives and Spaces'. Published in 1997 by Univerity of Exeter Press, Exeter, UK. Hardback ISBN 0-85989-555-6. Paperback ISBN 0-85989-556-4. Chapter 11, page 185.
Keywords: People_quotes Demand_quotes Speed_quotes Immediacy_quotes Maximum_quotes Minimum_quotes Time_quotes

Steven_Pinker

Neurons to Consciousness

“None of us has a brain that can actually put us in touch with reality unaided with truth. I've just shown you a bunch of gadgetry that responds to things that are essential to our survival, things that prevent us from falling off cliffs and bumping into trees. But they don't actually correspond to any clear description of the world as it is. So we have, for example, circuitry that responds to the edges rather than the physical distribution of light, because edges are important, that's where objects leave off and their backgrounds begin. Moreover, they can be fooled, as I did with each one of you. That since our neural circuitry does consist of a mechanism, not a pipeline to the truth or a window onto objective reality. That is naïve realism we know is false because there are illusions. You can't just trust your senses. That means we need some way of augmenting the faculties that nature gave us to make our beliefs as accurate as possible. Which of course is why the early modern philosophers made such a big deal of visual illusions. They said you can't just open your eyes and see the world as it is. Look at all these illusions. So what we do, what gives some of us confidence that our beliefs are objectively true is that they are part of an institutional infrastructure of testing and criticism and logic and determining which hypotheses withstand criticism and attempts at refutation. Devising exotic arrangements of reality to reflect the way reality is put together, namely experiments. Thanks to this huge network of minds, each one of them making up for deficits of all the others, we like to think that we have a collective grasp on truth that none of us individually can have. But of course, it's always fallible. The religious beliefs I think were actually pretty reasonable hypotheses in earlier states of our collective knowledge. Even Richard Dawkins said that before Darwin he probably would have been a creationist because the cosmic engineer was the only available explanation for the obvious adaptive complexity of living things. I would add that prior to the advent of modern neuroscience I probably would have believed in souls because there was no better explanation for phenomena such as that people respond intelligently to their environments. When you dream some part of you is up and about the world while your body is in bed the whole time. That seems like there must be some part of you that can leave your body. When a person suddenly dies some kind of animating force no longer seems to be animating the body that was there just a few minutes ago. So the soul hypothesis is not a stupid or irrational belief, nor is creationism if it's the best that you have. Now, of course, we can do better. But doing better in part depends not just on this cumulative weight of evidence and argument. But because few of us can actually reconstruct the scientific observations that justify the theory of natural selection or the theory of neural networks, all of us, at least a little bit, take it on faith in the following sense; that there is a community that you trust enough because when they have been challenged to defend their beliefs they can connect them to reality. They have shown that it isn't magic. That they have given reason to trust them because they've convinced you that they're the mores of their culture, of their scientific culture, designed so that they will find true things and weed out false things. If you don't have a degree of solidarity or trust, if you think that scientists are all in cahoots with big corporations or are trying to tear down all faith and values and meaning and you simply refuse to follow through the very long chain of deduction that connects the claims to the experiments, then you'll naturally reject it just because it's not your tribe. For you and me scientists are our tribe and we're apt to give them some credibility, indeed some credulousness, knowing that if ever challenged it would be repaid. But unless you trace that through it can be all too easy to reject the conclusions of science, and indeed a number of studies have shown that contrary to the common belief that people believe in falsehoods, such as that vaccines cause autism or that humans were created five thousand years ago or that the burning of fossil fuels has no effect on global temperatures, it turns out that people with those beliefs that we have every reason to believe are false are no more scientifically naïve on average than people that have beliefs that are scientifically justified. You give a test on evolution to a bunch of people who believe in evolution, give it to a bunch of creationists, there's not much difference in how well they score. In fact, often they are equal. Likewise, the typical grasp of climate science among someone who signs on to the scientific consensus is not much better than the adamant deniers. That kind of dashes the hope that simply by increasing the quality of science education you will lead people to more accurate beliefs. There, in addition, has to be a dissociation of who you think are the good guys and who are the bad guys from who has the best claims to truth. That's what it depends on.”
Keywords: Accuracy_quotes Adament_quotes Adaptability_quotes Addition_quotes Advent_quotes Aid_quotes Animate_quotes Argue_quotes Arrangement_quotes Attempt_quotes Augment_quotes Autism_quotes Availability_quotes Background_quotes Bad_quotes Bed_quotes Belief_quotes Best_quotes Big_quotes Body_quotes Brain_quotes Bump_quotes Bunch_quotes Burn_quotes Cahoot_quotes Chain_quotes Challenge_quotes Circuit_quotes Claim_quotes Clear_quotes Cliff_quotes Climate_quotes Collective_quotes Complexity_quotes Common_quotes Community_quotes Conclusion_quotes Confidence_quotes Connection_quotes Consensus_quotes Consist_quotes Contrary_quotes Convince_quotes Cooperation_quotes Corporation_quotes Correspondence_quotes Cosmic_quotes Creationism_quotes Credibility_quotes Criticism_quotes Culture_quotes Cumulative_quotes Dash_quotes Deal_quotes Death_quotes Deception_quotes Deduction_quotes Defence_quotes Deficit_quotes Degree_quotes Deny_quotes Dependence_quotes Description_quotes Design_quotes Determine_quotes Devise_quotes Differences_quotes Dissociation_quotes Distribution_quotes Dreaming_quotes Early_quotes Easy_quotes Edge_quotes Education_quotes Effect_quotes Engineer_quotes Environment_quotes Essential_quotes Evidence_quotes Evolution_quotes Exotic_quotes Experiment_quotes Explanation_quotes Eye_quotes Faculty_quotes Faith_quotes Fall_quotes Fallible_quotes False_quotes Few_quotes Find_quotes Follow_quotes Fool_quotes Force_quotes Fossil_quotes Fuel_quotes Gadget_quotes Global_quotes Good_quotes Grasp_quotes Guy_quotes Huge_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Illusion_quotes Importance_quotes Increasing_quotes Individual_quotes Infrastructure_quotes Institution_quotes Intelligence_quotes Irrational_quotes Justification_quotes Knowledge_quotes Leave_quotes Life_quotes Light_quotes Logic_quotes Long_quotes Magic_quotes Meaning_quotes Mechanism_quotes Mind_quotes Modern_quotes Moral_quotes Naïve_quotes Nature_quotes Natural_Selection_quotes Network_quotes Neural_quotes Neuroscience_quotes Object_quotes Objectivity_quotes Observation_quotes Obvious_quotes Part_quotes People_quotes Perception_quotes Phenomena_quotes Philosophy_quotes Physical_quotes Pipeline_quotes Possibility_quotes Prehistoric_quotes Prevent_quotes Reality_quotes Reason_quotes Reconstruct_quotes Reflection_quotes Refuse_quotes Refutation_quotes Rejection_quotes Religion_quotes Repay_quotes Respond_quotes Science_quotes Scientist_quotes Score_quotes Seem_quotes Selection_quotes Sense_quotes Show_quotes Sight_quotes Solidarity_quotes Soul_quotes State_quotes Study_quotes Stupidity_quotes Survival_quotes Tear_quotes Temperature_quotes Testing_quotes Theory_quotes Thinking_quotes Time_quotes Touch_quotes Trace_quotes Tree_quotes Tribal_quotes Trust_quotes Truth_quotes Try_quotes Typical_quotes Unaided_quotes Vaccine_quotes Value_quotes Visual_quotes Weed_quotes Weight_quotes Whole_quotes Window_quotes Withstand_quotes World_quotes

Computational Theory of Mind

“The computational theory of mind is not the same thing as the despised ‘computer metaphor.’ As many critics have pointed out, computers are serial, doing one thing at a time; brains are parallel, doing millions of things at once. Computers are fast; brains are slow. Computer parts are reliable; brain parts are noisy. Computers have a limited number of connections; brains have trillions. Computers are assembled according to a blueprint; brains must assemble themselves.”
  • Source: Steven Pinker (1997). How the Mind Works. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06973-0; eISBN 978-0-393-06973-0. Chapter 1 Section Reverse-Engineering the Psyche.
Keywords: Computation_quotes Theory_quotes Mind_quotes Despise_quotes Computer_quotes Metaphor_quotes Criticism_quotes Point_quotes Serial_quotes Time_quotes Brain_quotes Parallel_quotes Fast_quotes Slow_quotes Reliability_quotes Part_quotes Noise_quotes Limitation_quotes Number_quotes Connection_quotes Assembly_quotes According_quotes Blueprint_quotes Million_quotes Trillion_quotes

Karl_Popper

Irresponsible Dreams

“The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, From Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), 216. Reproduced in Karl Popper, Truth, Rationality and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1979), 9.
Keywords: History_quotes Science_quotes Humanity_quotes Idea_quotes Irresponsible_quotes Dreaming_quotes Obstinate_quotes Error_quotes Activity_quotes System_quotes Criticism_quotes Often_quotes Time_quotes Correction_quotes Learning_quotes Mistake_quotes Speak_quotes Clear_quotes Sensibility_quotes Progress_quotes Field_quotes Endeavour_quotes Change_quotes Evaluation_quotes

Nicholas_Rescher

Inherent Unpredictability

“The inherent unpredictability of future scientific developments — the fact that no secure inference can be drawn from one state of science to another — has important implications for the issue of the limits of science. It means that present-day science cannot speak for future science: it is in principle impossible to make any secure inferences from the substance of science at one time about its substance at a significantly different time. The prospect of future scientific revolutions can never be precluded. We cannot say with unblinking confidence what sorts of resources and conceptions the science of the future will or will not use. Given that it is effectively impossible to predict the details of what future science will accomplish, it is no less impossible to predict in detail what future science will not accomplish. We can never confidently put this or that range of issues outside 'the limits of science', because we cannot discern the shape and substance of future science with sufficient clarity to be able to say with any assurance what it can and cannot do. Any attempt to set 'limits' to science — any advance specification of what science can and cannot do by way of handling problems and solving questions — is destined to come to grief.”
  • Source: Nicholas Rescher, The Limits of Science (1984), 102-3.
Keywords: Inherent_quotes Prediction_quotes Unpredictability_quotes Future_quotes Science_quotes Development_quotes Progress_quotes Inference_quotes Conclusion_quotes State_quotes Causality_quotes Importance_quotes Imply_quotes Issue_quotes Limitation_quotes Meaning_quotes Present_quotes Day_quotes Speak_quotes Principle_quotes Impossibility_quotes Substance_quotes Time_quotes Significance_quotes Differences_quotes Prospect_quotes Revolution_quotes Preclude_quotes Blink_quotes Confidence_quotes Resource_quotes Conception_quotes Detail_quotes Accomplish_quotes Range_quotes Shape_quotes Sufficient_quotes Clarity_quotes Assurance_quotes Attempt_quotes Specification_quotes Advance_quotes Handle_quotes Problem_quotes Solution_quotes Question_quotes Destiny_quotes Grief_quotes Secure_quotes Outside_quotes Discern_quotes

Will_Rogers

Great Time to Know Something

"This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something."
  • Source: Will Rogers. Daily Telegram #1611, Mr. Rogers Thinks Its Time That A Smart Man Came Along (21 September 1931) in Rogers, W. P. A. (1979). Will Rogers’ Daily Telegrams: Volume 3: The Hoover Years 1931-1933. (J. M. Smallwood & S. K. Gragert, Eds.) (Vol. 3).
Keywords: Great_quotes Time_quotes World_quotes Humanity_quotes Knowledge_quotes

Mark_Seemann

Pair Programming

“...not everyone likes pair programming. As a typical introvert, I personally find the activity exhausting. It also leaves little room for contemplation, and it requires synchronization of schedules... it’s hardly practical or desirable to do it all the time.”
  • Source: Mark Seemann, “Code That Fits in Your Head: Heuristics for Software Engineering”. Published in 2021 by Pearson Education, Kindle Edition, ISBN: 978-0-13-746440-1. Page 190.

Keywords: Everyone_quotes Like_quotes Pair_quotes Programming_quotes Typical_quotes Introvert_quotes Activity_quotes Exhaust_quotes Leave_quotes Little_quotes Room_quotes Contemplation_quotes Require_quotes Synchronization_quotes Schedule_quotes Practical_quotes Desirable_quotes All_quotes Time_quotes Do_quotes

Herbert_Simon

Psychology of Choice

“Research findings on the psychology of choice, indicate some properties a thermometer of satisfaction should have. First, unlike the utility function, it is not limited to positive values, but has a zero point (of minimal contentment). Above zero, various degrees of satisfaction are experienced, and below zero, various degrees of dissatisfaction. Second, if periodic readings are taken of people in relatively stable life circumstances, we only occasionally find temperatures very far from zero in either direction, and the divergent measurements tend to regress over time back toward the zero mark. Most people consistently register either slightly below zero (mild discontent) or a little above (moderate satisfaction). To deal with these phenomena, psychology employs the concept of aspiration level... Aspiration levels provide a computational mechanism for satisficing.”
Keywords: Research_quotes Find_quotes Psychology_quotes Choice_quotes Indication_quotes Property_quotes Thermometer_quotes Satisfaction_quotes Utility_quotes Limitation_quotes Positive_quotes Value_quotes Zero_quotes Point_quotes Minimum_quotes Content_quotes Degree_quotes Experience_quotes Dissatisfaction_quotes Period_quotes People_quotes Relative_quotes Stable_quotes Life_quotes Circumstance_quotes Occasional_quotes Temperature_quotes Far_quotes Direction_quotes Divergent_quotes Measurement_quotes Regression_quotes Time_quotes Consistency_quotes Register_quotes Discontent_quotes Moderation_quotes Deal_quotes Phenomena_quotes Employment_quotes Conception_quotes Aspiration_quotes Level_quotes Computation_quotes Mechanism_quotes Satisfice_quotes

Solomon

Every Thing Season

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
  • Source: Solomon (or Kohelet). Ecclesiastes 3:1, King James Version of the Bible
Keywords: Season_quotes Time_quotes Purpose_quotes Heaven_quotes Thing_quotes

Albert_Speer

Mob Theme

“The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery, license. This was no ardent nationalism.”
  • Source: From the book "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer, published 1970 by Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4. Chapter 2, page 20.
Keywords: Mob_quotes Determine_quotes Theme_quotes Compensation_quotes Misery_quotes Insecurity_quotes Security_quotes Unemployment_quotes Employment_quotes Hopeless_quotes Hope_quotes Anonymous_quotes Assemblage_quotes Wallow_quotes Hours_quotes Time_quotes Obsession_quotes Savage_quotes License_quotes Ardent_quotes Nationalism_quotes

Anthony_Standen

True Conclusions

“But although in theory physicists realize that their conclusions are ...not certainly true, this ... does not really sink into their consciousness. Nearly all the time ...they ... act as if Science were indisputably True, and what's more, as if only science were true ...Any information obtained otherwise than by the scientific method, although it may be true, the scientists will call 'unscientific,' using this word as a smear word, by bringing in the connotation from its original [Greek] meaning, to imply that the information is false, or at any rate slightly phony.”
  • Source: Anthony Standen, In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 176-77.
Keywords: Theory_quotes Physicist_quotes Realization_quotes Conclusion_quotes Certainty_quotes True_quotes Sink_quotes Consciousness_quotes Time_quotes Act_quotes Science_quotes Indisputable_quotes Information_quotes Obtain_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Unscientific_quotes Word_quotes Smear_quotes Connotation_quotes Original_quotes Meaning_quotes Imply_quotes False_quotes Phony_quotes Method_quotes

John_Steinbeck

Great Difficulty with Good Hypothesis

“There is one great difficulty with a good hypothesis. When it is completed and rounded, the corners smooth and the content cohesive and coherent, it is likely to become a thing in itself, a work of art. It is then like a finished sonnet or a painting completed. One hates to disturb it. Even if subsequent information should shoot a hole in it, one hates to tear it down because it once was beautiful and whole. One of our leading scientists, having reasoned a reef in the Pacific, was unable for a long time to reconcile the lack of a reef, indicated by soundings, with the reef his mind told him was there.”
  • Source: John Steinbeck, In John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders Ricketts Sea of Cortez: a Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), 179-80.
Keywords: Difficulty_quotes Good_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Completion_quotes Round_quotes Corner_quotes Smooth_quotes Content_quotes Cohesion_quotes Coherence_quotes Work_quotes Art_quotes Finishing_quotes Sonnet_quotes Painting_quotes Hate_quotes Disturb_quotes Subsequent_quotes Information_quotes Shoot_quotes Hole_quotes Tear_quotes Down_quotes Beauty_quotes Whole_quotes Lead_quotes Scientist_quotes Reason_quotes Reef_quotes Pacific_quotes Unable_quotes Long_quotes Time_quotes Reconciliation_quotes Lack_quotes Indication_quotes Sound_quotes Mind_quotes Tell_quotes There_quotes

Frederick_Winslow_Taylor

Systematic Soldiering

“The greater part of the systematic soldiering, however, is done by the men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work can be done. So universal is soldiering for this purpose, or under any of the ordinary systems of compensating labor, who does not devote a considerable part of his time to studying just how slowly he can work and still convince his employer that he is going at a good pace.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor (1903) "Shop management; a paper read before the American society of mechanical engineers, " in: Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 24: 1337-1480. p. 1351.
Keywords: Productivity_quotes Soldiering_quotes Ignorance_quotes Employment_quotes Labor_quotes Deception_quotes Worker_quotes Great_quotes Part_quotes Systematic_quotes Men_quotes Deliberate_quotes Keep_quotes Employer_quotes Fast_quotes Work_quotes Done_quotes Universal_quotes Purpose_quotes Ordinary_quotes System_quotes Compensation_quotes Devote_quotes Considerable_quotes Time_quotes Study_quotes Slow_quotes Convince_quotes Go_quotes Pace_quotes Good_quotes

Gerald_Weinberg

Slack Saves Time

“Slack saves time.”
  • Source: Weinberg, G. M. (2014). More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant ’s Tool-Kit. Victoria, Canada: Lean Publishing. Retrieved from at http://leanpub.com/moresecrets
Keywords: Slack_quotes Time_quotes Schedule_quotes Save_quotes

Small Teams More Efficient

“In any case, the basic rule for size and composition of programming teams would seem to be this — for the best programming at the least cost, give the best possible programmers you can find sufficient time so you need the smallest number of them. When you have to work faster, or with less experienced people, costs and uncertainties will rise. In any case, the worst way to do a programming project is to hire a horde of trainees and put them to work under pressure and without supervision — although this is the most common practice today.”
  • Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Rule_quotes Size_quotes Programming_quotes Programmer_quotes Team_quotes Cost_quotes Slack_quotes Time_quotes Fast_quotes Experience_quotes People_quotes Hiring_quotes Training_quotes Pressure_quotes Supervision_quotes Management_quotes Practice_quotes Common_quotes Basic_quotes Composition_quotes Quality_quotes Small_quotes Rise_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Worse_quotes Way_quotes Project_quotes Horde_quotes Trainee_quotes Work_quotes

Programming Not Individual

“But there is much evidence, as we shall see presently, to argue that the proper study of programming is done at the level of the programming social unit. Not that the individual level is unimportant, but we might start by asking why, if the average programmer spends two-thirds of his time working with other people rather than working alone (yes, it's true!), that 99 percent of the studies have been on individual programmers.”
  • Source: Chapter 3. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Evidence_quotes Programming_quotes Society_quotes Group_quotes Team_quotes Organization_quotes Level_quotes Individual_quotes Importance_quotes Programmer_quotes Time_quotes Productivity_quotes Research_quotes Study_quotes Social_quotes Unimportant_quotes Why_quotes Average_quotes People_quotes Coordination_quotes Cooperation_quotes

Management Deskilling

“Even though the nth-level manager may have originally been a programmer, which is rare enough, he has almost certainly lost any programming ability by the time he reaches these heights. Given the rapid change of programming techniques and hardware, the higher-level manager becomes obsolete even if he retains the skills he originally had and keeps them sharply honed, for those languages and those machines are no longer in use. In a small survey of working programmers, only 15 percent of the first-line managers were thought to be as skillful as the programmers themselves, and none of the higher-level managers.”
  • Source: Chapter 6. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Manager_quotes Level_quotes Programmer_quotes Deskill_quotes Skill_quotes Ability_quotes Technology_quotes Hardware_quotes Language_quotes Machine_quotes Survey_quotes Originally_quotes Rare_quotes Certainly_quotes Time_quotes Lost_quotes Reach_quotes Height_quotes Rapid_quotes Change_quotes Programming_quotes Technique_quotes Higher_quotes Obsolete_quotes Retain_quotes Keep_quotes Hone_quotes Longer_quotes Use_quotes Small_quotes Working_quotes Line_quotes First_quotes Thought_quotes

Charles_E_Weller

All Good Men

“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”
  • Notes: Typing exercise. Originally “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.” With the advent of World War II the “country” version became much more popular and was included in many typing exercise books.
Keywords: Now_quotes Time_quotes Good_quotes Men_quotes Come_quotes Aid_quotes Country_quotes

T_H_White

Learning Cure for Sadness

“‘The best thing for being sad,’ replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, ‘is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn — pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics — why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough.’”
  • Source: White, T. H. (2011). The Once and Future King | 1939. New York, NY: Penguin. ISBN 9781101657546.
Keywords: Best_quotes Sad_quotes Begin_quotes Puff_quotes Blow_quotes Learning_quotes Failure_quotes Grow_quotes Old_quotes Tremble_quotes Anatomy_quotes Lie_quotes Awake_quotes Night_quotes Listening_quotes Disorder_quotes Vein_quotes Miss_quotes Love_quotes See_quotes World_quotes Devastate_quotes Evil_quotes Honor_quotes Trample_quotes Sewer_quotes Base_quotes Mind_quotes Why_quotes Wag_quotes Exhaust_quotes Alienate_quotes Torture_quotes Fear_quotes Distrust_quotes Dreaming_quotes Regret_quotes Look_quotes Pure_quotes Science_quotes Astronomy_quotes Lifetime_quotes Natural_quotes History_quotes Literature_quotes Biology_quotes Medicine_quotes Theocriticism_quotes Geography_quotes Economics_quotes Start_quotes Cartwheel_quotes Appropriate_quotes Wood_quotes Beat_quotes Adversary_quotes Fencing_quotes Mathematics_quotes Time_quotes Plow_quotes

E_O_Wilson

Drowning in Information

“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”
  • Source: p. 294 Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998). Vintage Books. ISBN: 9780679450771. ISBN: 9780679768678.
Keywords: Drown_quotes Information_quotes Starve_quotes Wisdom_quotes World_quotes Run_quotes Synthesizer_quotes People_quotes Able_quotes Put_quotes Together_quotes Right_quotes Time_quotes Think_quotes Critical_quotes Choice_quotes Wise_quotes

Stephen_Wolfram

Time

“Time is the inexorable progress of computation. If we think about things in the world as being governed by rules, then what happens in the course of time is those rules get applied... The thing that changes through time is that we've applied these rules more and more and more times.”
  • Source: Spoken by Stephen Wolfram in a video interview with Brian Keating recorded in the YouTube video ‘Stephen Wolfram | My Discovery Changes Everything’ published on channel ‘Dr. Brian Keating’ on 2024-01-19. Video offset 15:16. Online at https://youtu.be/c-RO3vM10Ok?si=i-XspeEtzqA3jPl9 retrieved 2024.
Keywords: Time_quotes Inexorable_quotes Progress_quotes Computation_quotes Think_quotes World_quotes Govern_quotes Rule_quotes Happen_quotes Course_quotes Apply_quotes Change_quotes

Future Jumping

“There’s a certain robustness to time when viewed in these computational terms. There’s no way to ‘jump ahead’ in time; the only way to find out what will happen in the future is to go through the irreducible computational steps to get there.”
Keywords: Robust_quotes Time_quotes View_quotes Computation_quotes Term_quotes Way_quotes Jump_quotes Ahead_quotes Find_quotes Happen_quotes Future_quotes Go_quotes Through_quotes Irreducible_quotes Step_quotes

Shoshana_Zuboff

Time Study Expert

“The time-study expert became the new focus of workers' antagonisms. Informal production quotas persisted and, in many cases, took on an overtly anti-management spirit. The union contract became the most important means for institutionalizing workers' instincts for self-preservation, as rationalization routed out the ordinary graces with which the workday had been laced. Concern over wages and hours, work rules, and working conditions began to replace the craftworker's culturally embedded practices of effort regulation. Overall, the purification of effort meant a heightened standard of labor discipline, and as such it widened the gulf between those who gave of their bodies in the service of production and those who did not.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 46. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Time_quotes Worker_quotes Production_quotes Quota_quotes Management_quotes Union_quotes Contract_quotes Importance_quotes Instinct_quotes Self-Preservation_quotes Reason_quotes Rational_quotes Compensation_quotes Hours_quotes Environment_quotes Condition_quotes Craft_quotes Culture_quotes Regulation_quotes Purification_quotes Effort_quotes Labor_quotes Discipline_quotes Body_quotes Taylorism_quotes Study_quotes Expert_quotes Focus_quotes Antagonism_quotes Informal_quotes Persist_quotes Anti-management_quotes Spirit_quotes Institutionalize_quotes Grace_quotes Workday_quotes Lace_quotes Wage_quotes Rule_quotes Embed_quotes Practice_quotes Height_quotes Standard_quotes Wide_quotes Gulf_quotes Service_quotes

Panopticon Recording

“Information systems that translate, record, and display human behavior can provide the computer age version of universal transparency with a degree of illumination that would have exceeded even Bentham's most outlandish fantasies. Such systems can become information panopticons that, freed from the constraints of space and time, do not depend upon the physical arrangement of buildings or the laborious record keeping of industrial administration. They do not require the mutual presence of objects of observation. They do not even require the presence of an observer. Information systems can automatically and continuously record almost anything their designers want to capture, regardless of the specific intentions brought to the design process or the motives that guide data interpretation and utilization.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 322. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Panopticon_quotes Information_quotes System_quotes Translation_quotes Display_quotes Computer_quotes Surveillance_quotes Universal_quotes Transparency_quotes Illumination_quotes Fantasy_quotes Constraint_quotes Time_quotes Space_quotes Dependency_quotes Physical_quotes Arrangement_quotes Administration_quotes Building_quotes Industrial_quotes Object_quotes Observation_quotes Automation_quotes Record_quotes Design_quotes Capture_quotes Intentional_quotes Process_quotes Motivation_quotes Guidance_quotes Interpretation_quotes Utilization_quotes Human_quotes Behavior_quotes Provide_quotes Age_quotes Version_quotes Free_quotes Laborious_quotes Keep_quotes Require_quotes Presense_quotes Observer_quotes Continuous_quotes Designer_quotes Regardless_quotes Specific_quotes Data_quotes

Automated Evaluation

“The system automatically computed efficiency ratings for each worker by comparing the amount of time it took to complete a job had been priced. Such calculations with the amount of time for which it could have been generated only by a computer system, since 'we could never have enough clerks to compute these kinds of ratios.' The ratings were considered management information and were not accessible to the craftworkers. Many foremen cautioned against taking the ratings at face value. The most experienced craftsperson frequently was loaded with the most difficult assignments. That individual might show the worst efficiency rating simply because his or her assignments were the most complex and required more than the assigned time.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 331. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: System_quotes Automation_quotes Evaluation_quotes Efficiency_quotes Rating_quotes Time_quotes Calculation_quotes Computer_quotes Management_quotes Information_quotes Accessibility_quotes Transparency_quotes Worker_quotes Craft_quotes Supervision_quotes Surveillance_quotes Experience_quotes Difficulty_quotes Assignment_quotes Individuality_quotes Complexity_quotes Requirements_quotes Computation_quotes Compare_quotes Amount_quotes Job_quotes Price_quotes Clerk_quotes Ratio_quotes Craftworker_quotes Foremen_quotes Face_quotes Value_quotes Frequent_quotes Load_quotes Worse_quotes

Manager Panic

“People at every organizational level -- managers, engineers, and operators -- each spent a good deal of time speculating on the sources of this dynamic and its ultimate consequences. One top manager maintained that the core of the problem was the lack of an alternative to the traditional managerial function. ‘The problem is that managers don't have skills and knowledge or a vision of their new role. They are asking, What is going to happen to me? And so they are in a panic.'”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 251. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: People_quotes Organization_quotes Hierarchy_quotes Consequence_quotes Tradition_quotes Skill_quotes Knowledge_quotes Vision_quotes Uncertainty_quotes Panic_quotes Level_quotes Manager_quotes Engineer_quotes Operator_quotes Time_quotes Speculate_quotes Source_quotes Dynamic_quotes Ultimate_quotes Top_quotes Maintain_quotes Core_quotes Problem_quotes Lack_quotes Alternative_quotes Function_quotes Role_quotes Happen_quotes
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