Update: This is now taken up in my blog.
If you think I've misquoted, misattributed or in any way corrupted a quote/quotation, please let me know. Entries marked with a question mark are the ones that I don't really know the sources of, and am just taking an (educated) guess. If you know the author of a quote/quotation that I've marked as Unknown, do let me know. You may email me or use the Feedback page.
Of course, if you know of a great quote/quotation/excerpt that is not listed here (there are going to be thousands, I know), maybe you can share it?
You can find (usually longer) excerpts and quotes in the Bookshelf.
This page is updated often, almost weekly/fortnightly, as I come across more material. You might want to keep watching this space. The easiest way to do it is probably subscribe to the RSS feed, where I'll be putting up updates as they happen.
These are the ones I think are what is commonly called a product of genius. Sometimes profound, sometimes insightful, sometimes funny, sometimes caustic, sometimes brilliant, sometimes probing, sometimes philosophical, sometimes beautiful.
And always, always, always honest.
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
The continuation that obeys only obvious stack semantics, O grasshopper, is not the true continuation.
Guy Steele
Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
Edsger Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10
Some may say Ruby is a bad rip-off of Lisp or Smalltalk, and I admit that. But it is nicer to ordinary people.
Matz, LL2
Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.
Eric Raymond, "How to Become a Hacker"
The Second Lemma of Humor is that if it requires an explanation it is not funny.
Unknown
Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly.
Batman Costume warning label
We are not without accomplishment. We have managed to distribute poverty equally.
Nguyen Co Thatch, Vietnamese foreign minister
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of, and since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
Virgo Frankl(?)
Arbeit macht frei - work liberates.
The (cynical) sign that marked (and still marks) the entrance to the Auschwitz I.
Hey, butt out, Bill Gates, this is MY syntax.
Ursula K. Le Guin, on Word AutoCorrect
If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.
For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.
Francis Bacon
Yes, I've heard - the bomb is in the Vedas. It might be, but if you look
hard enough, you'll find Coke in the Vedas too. That's the great thing
about all religious texts. You can find anything you want in them - as
long as you know what you're looking for.
Arundhati Roy
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Edsger W. Dijkstra
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)
There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the
clock that is always right--except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a
clock could be in a civilized country.
Jerome K. Jerome, `Clocks'
It is commonly the case with technologies that you can get the best insight about how they work by watching them fail.
Unknown
Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas.
Keppel Enderbery
It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.
Dan Quayle
We are ready for an unforseen event that may or may not occur.
Dan Quayle
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.
Dan Quayle
We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.
Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor