text:
User talk:Nanobug

Warhol
Hiya Nanobug.

I noticed a correction to a Warhol quote I put up. The original quote I had is correct. He is actually misquoting himself here.

The original quote may have included the word "world", but where he is talking about studio 54, and quotes himself, he omit's the "world" part.

I've left it as you changed it, but thought I should let you know.

Thanks for fixing the formatting btw. I'm still just racing ahead instead of looking at the templates!

Cheers,

Neolux 15:23 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Quote Source: Penguin Thesaurus of Quotations (Subheading "Fame") (i'll get the ISBN later) by A.J. Cohen.

 * Sorry about that, I mistakenly assumed the quote in the Wikipedia article Andy Warhol was correct. Why don't you just change the Wikiquote quote back to the correct version, add the "Source:" into Wikiquote and fix the Wikipedia article as well. While you are there you may as well add a link from the Wikipedia article back to the Wikiquote article. (There's a template for that as well.)
 * As far as fixing the format, don't mention it. It is a team effort after all, and as Harry S. Truman said "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." Nanobug 16:15 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * The quote in Wikipedia most likely IS correct. As far as I can deduce, Warhol said the quote originally in the 60's sometime, then quoted himself again later in reference to Studio 54.  The quote in my Penguin book refers to the Studio 54 reference, and that's the only one I have.  The original quote I don't have a Source for, so I can't say either way.
 * Perhaps the Wikiquote should also have the original quote by Warhol, in addition to the Studio 54 one, so there is some kind of continuity there, along with a comment stating the differences between the two. Neolux 15:48 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Kalki as sysop
Hi, I hope you don't mind, but I suggested that Kalki be made a sysop. He's made over 1000 edits here and, other than you, seems to be one of very few active editors here. There didn't seem like a lot of point making an official nomination as there are so few people here to comment on it, so Tim Starling made him one straight away, but let Tim know if you feel there is a problem with this. It's usually best to have more than one sysop anyway, even on a small project. By the way, the Votes for deletion page could do with some attention. :) Angela 04:57, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * Not at all, Kalki makes a perfect sysop. I have been rather away a lot lately from Wikiquote (see below), so we cetainly needed someone else to help keep the site clean and organized. ~ Nanobug 01:28, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Election notice
Do you have any idea on how to get rid of the election notice on the "Recent Changes" page? I've tried editing it out a couple of times with no results. ~ Kalki 15:36, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Sorry, no, I didn't spend enough time trying to work it out; but it appears you got it fixed eventually anyway. ~ Nanobug 01:28, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Logo
Well hello again NB, it has been a while since I've been back here. Work, sleep, work, that sort of thing.

Just noticing that the logo is not transparent, and I can provide a transparent one if you like so that it sits better with the page. If there are any other little tidbits that I can do to improve it, let me know. You might also want to suggest updating the logo on the wikimediafoundation.org site. It still is the old disproportionate arcs logo.

Transparent PNG logo:

I darkened the text a little so it would stand out more against a non-white background.

Cheers,

Neolux 16:58, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I've been away a lot lately too (see below). The transparent image looks fine to me. Kalki, what do you think, shall we use it? ~ Nanobug 01:28, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Absent
I have absent a lot from Wikiquote lately, as I have been very busy with my own Mediawiki project which we are using internal to my company. We only have 60 users so far, and 250 articles, but getting more every day, and the site is starting to come together. I'm sorry I haven't been contributing to Wikiquote as much as I used to - I come back for a visit every so often and see the number of quotations just keeps on growing, and there are 15 other language versions, so the project seems to be doing well. Please excuse me if I take a while to answer my messages from now on, but I will not disappear completely. ~ Nanobug 01:28, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hey
Welcome back! Greetings from a newbie, --Aphaia 16:21, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I come back and visit once in a while. Wikiquote is progressing well! ~ Nanobug 22:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back and request for mail confirmation
Hi, Nanobug, welcome back to English Wikiquote.

During your absence, Requests for adminship was updated and all active sysops are requested to provide an email address to the community either through wikimail or on their talk (as you may know, now we need to activate and confirm our address before using Wikimail function.

The new rule says: In principle, administrators should register a valid email address and allow other users to send them messages in preferences, or an email address indicated on their user page. For active sysops, as well sysop candidates, it is mandatory. Inactive sysops and guest sysops are recommended to put their wikimail addresson their talk pages. If they are back and become active again, they are expected to activate their mail preferences.

Since we have no way to mail you, I put this message on your talk. Would you please consider the requirement above, and give us an oppoturnity to mail you?

Thanks! --Aphaia 10:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Update: No response since above notification, "email this user" function not enabled for this user. -- Cirt (talk) 19:33, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Inactive?
Hi, I noticed you have not edited here in quite a long time, and are listed as an inactive administrator. Do you think there is any chance you will be back? Cheers! BD2412 T 04:18, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Inactivity discussion
Please see Requests for adminship/Nanobug (inactivity discussion).

Thank you,

-- Cirt (talk) 11:42, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Nanobug


text:
Talk:Confucius

Comment
Wow! Confucious has certainly inspired a lot of quotes! And I love the original chinese there... excellent stuff. -- Neolux 15:38 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * And lot of stuff that is not from Confucius, I guess...

"To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous." vs "Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."
Pacerier (talk) 21:29, 26 February 2016 (UTC): ❝
 * I see two quotes listed:
 * 學而不思則罔，思而不學則殆. To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.
 * Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
 * Are they one and the same?

❞

Famous Quote
Is this a relevant quote? "Upon seeing the shadow of a pigeon, one must resist the urge to look up."

Answer: No, it is not. It was made up for a title card that was used for a comedy sketch entitled "A bad day at the gym". People latched onto it and started passing it off as one of confucius'.

Pinyin
How about some pinyin on these quotes?

xué ér bù sī zé wǎng sī ér bù xué zé dài

Translation
Is the "translation" on these quotes really needed? I think they are easy enough to understand, and open enough for other interpretations depending on the reader. Seems out of place to dictate exactly what the translations should be.

Anyone disagree?

 * English translations are needed, but what you seem to be refering to are interpretive comments of IP 69.154.142.9 that were added and labelled "translations". I have just removed or reverted most of these. ~ Rumour 09:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Sections
This is one hell of a list, is anyone willing to spend some time putting these into sections? It was nice reading a few but after a while it became very repetitive and if maybe there was section you could see little bits on various areas of philosophy/proverbs/whatever these quotes are called. 195.137.118.89 19:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi
Confucius had some really good quotes and they were really deep.

"unsourced" quotes?
These unsourced quotes, are they quotes that are probably by confusious but hard to source, or probably NOT by confusious but are commonly attributed to him? 124.243.156.76 16:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

is the quote, "The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell." unsourced or is it perhaps a anachronistic translation of "The mind of the superior man is conversant with righteousness; the mind of the ordinary man is conversant with gain." (Confucius: Analects, bk. iv., c. xxi.) --Teledyn (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

sourced/unsourced
basically, it seems like a common academic belief (i study chinese literature and so I'm taught, but I'm no luminary) that anything confucius comes from a 3rd party source, apparently we don't have a single piece of text written by the man himself - those are either the work of his disciples or plain falsifications.

a little pinyin would be appreciated, especially since the quotes are written with traditional characters (which is a bad thing itself, simplified characters are the standard by now even for traditional texts - they are the ones taught in mainland china and to foreigners).

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote on this list please move it to Confucius. --Antiquary 19:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

 * The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.

 * When words are unfit, speech is unadapted, and actions are unsuccessful.

 * He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

 * He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful — may be called intelligent indeed.

 * I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.

 * I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it.

 * If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.

 * If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere — although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has.

 * Is virtue remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.

 * Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

 * Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.

 * It's only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there's always a way to solve problems without using violence
 * The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.

 * The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it to confess your ignorance.

 * The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

 * The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends — such a man may be reckoned a complete man.

 * The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.

 * The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

 * The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters.

 * The superior man... does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.

 * There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth, lust. When he is strong, quarrelsomeness. When he is old, covetousness.

 * Things that are done, it is needless to speak about. Things that are past, it is needless to blame.
 * Variant translation: Whats done is done, move on.

 * To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue: gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.

 * To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

 * Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.

 * What the superior man seeks is in himself; What the mean man seeks is in others.
 * Variant translation: A superior man is himself as himself; A lesser man must define himself through others

 * When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again.

 * When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

 * When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them.

 * When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it — this is knowledge.

 * With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow — I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.

 * Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

 * While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits... While you do not know life, how can you know about death?

 * An oppressive government is more to be feared than a man-eating tiger.

 * Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

 * Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.

 * Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

 * He who will not economize will have to agonize.

 * If a man sets his heart on benevolence he will be free from evil.

 * Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.

 * It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

 * It does not matter the number of times we fall but the number of times we rise when we fall.

 * Respect yourself and others will respect you.

 * Study the past if you would divine the future.

 * The commander of the forces of a large State may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him.

 * They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

 * To lead uninstructed people to war is to throw them away.

 * To love a thing is to want it to live.

 * To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

 * When anger rises, think of the consequences.

When true knowledge is achieved, then the will becomes sincere; When the will is sincere, then the heart is set right; When the heart is set right, then the personal life is cultivated; When the personal life is cultivated, then the family life is regulated; When the family life is regulated, then the national life is orderly; And when the national life is orderly, then there is peace in the world.
 * When things are investigated, then true knowledge is achieved;

 * Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

 * I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

 * The superior man is a man with ideal characteristics.

 * The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty as the son who neglects them.

 * When a wise man points at the moon, the imbecile examines the finger.

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without
There is actually a Chinese saying similar to this one, but of different meaning:

 * 寧為玉碎，不為瓦全.

Better be a piece of broken jade than unbroken tile — it's better to die with honour than to survive in disgrace. However, it wasn't said by Confucius, but was first recorded in one of the dynastic histories in the second half of the first millenium.

traditional chinese?
please change it to simplified, Im lazy.

Better to Light a Candle Than to Curse the Darkness
Many sources in the Internet attributes the following quote to Confucius:

"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"

Original(traditional Chinese version):"與其詛咒黑暗，不如點亮光明".

Misattributed quotes
There are plenty of quotes that are misattributed to Confucius. Beside the obvious joke ones, there are also many that come of top of "most popular Confucius quotes" over the internet. Shouldn't these be added to the Misattributed list as well? WikiLaurent (talk) 04:22, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

bold
What is the meaning of bolding text and not others?174.3.125.23 04:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * This has been an editorial option here since the earliest days of the project, to emphasize quotes or portions of quotes which are deemed of higher significance, for various reasons. There are occasionally a few disputes as to where it should or should not be applied, but overall these have been rather rare. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 05:00, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Looks like a false quote to me. Anyone know?
I want you to be everything that's you, deep at the center of your being.

Yet another
"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children." Repeated in various forms all over the Internet. Is there any actual source for it or was it made up by Oscar Wilde like everything else? --82.131.25.76 18:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Not Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, but a paraphrase of the Guan Zi : 《管子·权修 第三》：« 一年之计，莫如树谷；十年之计，莫如树木；终身之计，莫如树人. 一树一获者，谷也；一树十获者，木也；一树百获者，人也. 我苟种之，如神用之，举事如神，唯王之门. »

Source for 3 or 4 wise monkeys
German Wikipedia has this quote:

– Kungfutse: Lun Yu. Gespräche. Buch 12
 * 「非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動」
 * 「fei li wu shi, fei li wu ting, fei li wu yan, fei li wu dong」
 * „Was nicht dem Gesetz der Schönheit [= angemessenes Verhalten] entspricht, darauf schaue nicht; was nicht dem Gesetz der Schönheit entspricht, darauf höre nicht; was nicht dem Gesetz der Schönheit entspricht, davon rede nicht; was nicht dem Gesetz der Schönheit entspricht, das tue nicht.“

English Wikipedia also has it:

In Chinese, a similar phrase exists in the Analects of Confucius from 2nd to 4th century B.C.: "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety" (非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動).[Original text: 論語, Analects] It may be that this phrase was shortened and simplified after it was brought into Japan.

Should this be added to this page? Crissov (talk) 13:39, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

"Never give a sword to a man who can't dance"
This quote is generally attributed to Confucius. I have tried to figure out where it is from, but...--213.113.50.46 14:42, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

will to win
“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” – Confucius

Is this misattributed? Cesiumfrog (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

"Men, at first, are good; same in nature, their habits part"
Having read Falun Dafa's teachings, I don't get what makes that saying evil in itself; it may well be used out of context by Chinese brainwashed by the CCP to justify their evil-doing. --Apisite (talk) 04:33, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

illiterate women
https://www.ijariit.com/manuscripts/v5i3/V5I3-1975.pdf
 * Confucius famously said that a good woman is an illiterate one. Women often suffered under the Confucian system.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-may-07-fg-confucius7-story.html
 * CONFUCIUS famously considered a good woman to be an illiterate woman. The ancient sage might want to eat his words

Found two permutations of the idea that he expressed something along these lines.

Does anyone know anything more specific regarding this claim, like which of his writing purportedly includes it, and any variations that might exist in how it was translated? The context? WakandaQT (talk) 15:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Confucius said, 'The young people should be good sons at home, polite and respectful in society; they should be careful in their conduct and faithful, love the people, and associate themselves with the kind people. If after learning all this, they still have energy left, let them read books.' (Analects i.6, as translated by Lin Yutang in The Wisdom of Confucius.)" As an aside, Lin Yutang applied this saying to women in his best-seller book The Importance of Living: "The ideal woman for me is one who loves her cosmetics along with her mathematics, and who is more feminine than feminist. Let them have their cosmetics, and if they still have energy left, as Confucius would say, let them play with mathematics also." ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:58, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I would say it is a bogus claim. What Confucius is quoted as saying about literature in the Analects is this: "子曰. 弟子、入則孝、出則弟、謹而信、凡愛衆、而親仁. 行有餘力、則以學文.

Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills
This is not a confucius quote, but rather from the book Huainanzi: "人莫蹪於山，而蹪於蛭". See here. The duke (talk) 15:41, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger
The saying “Oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger” has been seen with a poem at a certain website, but where exactly did it come from? -- Apisite (talk) 22:10, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Quoted in and republished in  Robin Loup (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Confucius


text:
Computers

A computer is a machine for manipulating data or storing data according to a list of instructions. Computers take many forms, from early room-sized complexes to modern personal computers (PCs) and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to tiny embedded systems that add sophisticated capabilities to other devices like toys and electronic appliances.

Quotes

 * On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"...I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
 * Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), p. 67

 * It makes sense to examine Plato and pottery together in order to understand the Greek world, Descartes and the mechanical clock together in order to understand Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the same way, it makes sense to regard the computer as a technological paradigm for the science, the philosophy, even the art of the coming generation.
 * Jay David Bolter, Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age (1984)

 * The clock has been the center of Western technology since its invention in the Middle Ages. Computer technology too finds it indispensable, although it has changed the clock from a mechanical device to a wholly electronic one.
 * Jay David Bolter, Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age (1984)

 * In Hollywood, they think drawn animation doesn't work anymore, computers are the way. They forget that the reason computers are the way is that Pixar makes good movies. So everybody tries to copy Pixar. They're relying too much on the technology and not enough on the artists.
 * Tim Burton in: Tim BurtonBiography, IMDb

 * I have bought this wonderful machine- a computer. Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine- it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy.
 * Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (1988), I, p. 24 ISBN 0-385-41886-8

 * Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend.
 * "Computer's Credo", Paranoia

 * Starting when computer technology first emerged during World War II and continuing into the 1960s, women made up most of the computing workforce. By 1970, however, women only accounted for 13.6% of bachelor's in computer science graduates. In 1984 that number rose to 37%, but it has since declined to 18% -- around the same time personal computers started showing up in homes. According to NPR, personal computers were marketed almost exclusively to men and families were more likely to buy computers for boys than girls.
 * Computerscience.org, "The Current State of Women in Computer Science".

 * To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now, large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world—increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward.
 * This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right.
 * Michael Crichton, lecture at the California Institute of Technology, (January 17, 2003).

 * If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.
 * Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (1986), III, p. 50 ISBN 0-393-31570-3

 * The simple fact is that without supporting directives or a mechanism for feedback, security is defined differently by each person and verified by no one. There is no metric for compliance with a "culture", and a "culture of security" is overridden by a culture of "get the job done" every time. If there are rules, write them down. If technology is put in place to implement or monitor the rules, write that down too. If people break the rules, follow up. If the rules prevent legitimate business from getting done, change them. It's that simple.

 * It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypotheses that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities.
 * Richard Feynman The Character of Physical Law, page 57.

 * Spock: Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one man, and nothing can replace it or him.
 * Star Trek: The Original Series, The Ultimate Computer, screenplay by D. C. Fontana, story by Laurence N. Wolf

 * "So computers are tools of the devil?" thought Newt. He had no problem believing it. Computers had to be the tools of somebody, and all he knew for certain was that it definitely wasn't him.
 * Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, chapter: Saturday, page 313 (Corgi Books, 1991), ISBN 0-552-13703-0

 * Where a calculator like the ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1½ tons.
 * Andrew Hamilton, "Brains that Click", Popular Mechanics 91 (3), March 1949, (pp. 162 et seq.) at p. 258.

 * What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking — there's the real danger.
 * Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

 * Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
 * Donald Knuth (1984) cited in: Jorge Angeles (2011) Dynamic Response of Linear Mechanical Systems. p. 419

 * These machines have no common sense; they have not yet learned to "think," and they do exactly as they are told, no more and no less. This fact is the hardest concept to grasp when one first tries to use a computer.
 * Donald Knuth

 * The Analytical Engine has no pretentions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.
 * Ada Lovelace, An Account of the Analytical Engine, 1842, reprinted in Faster than Thought, ed. B.V. Bowden (Pitman, 1953), cited in Andrew Hodges Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence (Unwin 1985) (probably the first known instance of "Computers can only do what they are programmed to do")

 * Dare to be gorgeous and unique. But don't ever be cryptic or otherwise unfathomable. Make it unforgettably great.
 * Robert J. Mical, Amiga Intuition Reference Manual, 1986, ISBN 0201110768, p. 231

 * The Joker: Do you know how many times we've come close to world war three over a flock of geese on a computer screen?
 * Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke, (March 1988).

 * The reality is that future cyber warfare will likely resemble medieval siege warfare – as critical infrastructure and vital services to a city's population are shut-down and locked-out as a result of a ransomware attack.
 * Gunter Ollmann as qtd. in Thomas Macaulay & Tamlin Magee, "The future of technology in warfare: From drone swarms to VR torture", Techworld.com, (Apr 18, 2018).

 * Today's computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense. One reason, of course, is sheer computing power. It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [our] skull.
 * Steven Pinker, How Unique You Are!; Is There a Creator Who Cares About You? (1998), published by Jehovah's Witnesses.

 * But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and navigation tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of its operations mathematically certain through its power of correcting its possible errors? What shall we think of a machine which can not only accomplish all this, but actually print off its elaborate results, when obtained, without the slightest intervention of the intellect of man?
 * Edgar Allan Poe, "Maelzel's Chess-Player" (Southern Literary Messenger, April 1836)

 * Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
 * Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks 3rd Ed., 1996, Chapter 2 page 83

 * An adversary capable of implanting the right virus or accessing the right terminal can cause massive damage.
 * George Tenet, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Cited in Awake! magazine 2001, 5/22.

 * By the '80s, the early pioneering work done by female programmers had mostly been forgotten. In contrast, Hollywood was putting out precisely the opposite image: Computers were a male domain. In hit movies like "Revenge of the Nerds," "Weird Science," "Tron," "WarGames" and others, the computer nerds were nearly always young white men. Video games, a significant gateway activity that led to an interest in computers, were pitched far more often at boys, as research in 1985 by Sara Kiesler, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, found. "In the culture, it became something that guys do and are good at," says Kiesler, who is also a program manager at the National Science Foundation. "There were all kinds of things signaling that if you don't have the right genes, you're not welcome."
 * Clive Thompson, "The Secret History of Women in Coding", The New York Times, (Feb. 13, 2019).

 * A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.
 * Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

 * Computers with their binary on–off logic seem to appeal to the military mind. This is because the military, in order to counter the inherent confusion and danger of war, is forever seeking ways to make communications as terse and unambiguous as humanly possible. Computers by their very nature do just that. Had they only been able to stand at attention and salute, in many ways they would have made ideal soldiers.
 * Martin Van Creveld, "Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present", New York, London: FreePress, Collier Macmillan, 1989, p.239; as qtd. in Antoine Bosquet, "Cyberneticizing the American War Machine: Science and Computers in the Cold War", p. 84.

 * With computers acting as the stimulus, the theory of war was assimilated into that of microeconomics. . . . Instead of evaluating military operations by their product –that is, victory – calculations were cast in terms of input–output and cost effectiveness. Since intuition was replaced by calculation, and since the latter wasto be carried out with the aid of computers, it was necessary that all the phenomena of war be reduced to quantitative form. Consequently everything that could be quantiﬁed was, while everything that could not be tended to be thrown onto the garbage heap.
 * Martin Van Creveld, Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present, New York, London: Free Press, Collier Macmillan, 1989, p. 246; as qtd. in Antoine Bosquet, “Cyberneticizing the American War Machine: Science and Computers in the Cold War”, p. 94

 * It used to be said of a man who had suffered a catastrophic setback in his line of work that he had been handed his head on a platter. We are being handed our heads with tweezers now.
 * Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (1997), Ch. 9, p. 38. ISBN 0-425-16434-9

 * The danger of computers becoming like humans is not as great as the danger of humans becoming like computers.
 * Konrad Zuse (2005) in: Hersfelder Zeitung. Nr. 212, 12. September 2005.

Software

 * Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.
 * Tim Berners-Lee (in Technology Review, July 1996)

 * Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.
 * Fred Brooks, essay "No Silver Bullet", 1987

 * Interviewer: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer? Bill Gates: No. the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system. You got to be willing to read other people's code, then write your own, then have other people review your code. You've got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you're doing wrong.
 * Bill Gates cited in: "Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry", Tempus, by Susan Lammers (Editor)

 * Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
 * SIGPLAN, Association for Computing Machinery (1992) "Epigrams in Programming", September 1982

 * A refund for defective software might be nice, except it would bankrupt the entire software industry in the first year.
 * Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 2003, Introduction, page 14

Computer games

 * The computer was a fairly new thing in 1971, and most people were not well acquainted with it. There was only one five-week course in programming at Carleton. I had taken the class when I was a junior, and the next trimester, I was recruited to be a lab assistant to help other students who were taking the course. I was fascinated by the power of the computer to not only calculate, but also to interact with written language. I had been thinking about writing a program to interact with a human through language, but the content of such a program remained a mystery to me.
 * Bill Heineman as quoted by Kevin Wong, "The Forgotten History of 'The Oregon Trail,' As Told By Its Creators". Motherboard. Vice. (2017-02-15).

 * The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games.
 * Eugene Jarvis, Supercade, MIT Press, p.14 ISBN: 0-262-02492-6

Programming

 * The primary duty of an exception handler is to get the error out of the lap of the programmer and into the surprised face of the user.

Misattributed

 * I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
 * Commonly attributed to Thomas J. Watson (1874–1956), general manager and chairman of IBM, but there is no evidence he ever said or wrote this. The earliest known citations occurred in the 1980s.

authors: মোহাম্মদ জনি হোসেন

title: Computers