“There's often more than one correct thing.There's often more than one right thing.There's often more than one obvious thing.”

—  Larry Wall

[199806201726.KAA26569@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There's often more than one correct thing.There's often more than one right thing.There's often more than one obvious t…" by Larry Wall?
Larry Wall photo
Larry Wall 294
American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl 1954

Related quotes

Shahrukh Khan photo

“I may say things with the right intention, but more often than not, people will misconstrue it.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

Seneca the Younger photo

“There are more things, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears
Original: (la) Plura sunt, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.

Terry Pratchett photo
Anselm of Canterbury photo

“God often works more by the life of the illiterate seeking the things that are God's, than by the ability of the learned seeking the things that are their own.”

Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) Benedictine monk, philosopher, and prelate

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 123.

David Brin photo

“I've long felt that the best minds of the right had useful things to contribute to a national conversation — even if their overall habit of resistance to change proved wrongheaded, more often than right.”

David Brin (1950) novelist, short story writer

A rant about stupidity... and the coming civil war... (2009)
Context: I've long felt that the best minds of the right had useful things to contribute to a national conversation — even if their overall habit of resistance to change proved wrongheaded, more often than right. At least, some of them had the beneficial knack of targeting and criticizing the worst liberal mistakes, and often forcing needful re-drafting.
That is, some did, way back in when decent republicans and democrats shared one aim — to negotiate better solutions for the republic.
Alas, today's Republican Establishment seems not only incapable but uninterested in negotiation or deliberation. It isn't just the dogmatism, or lockstep partisanship, or Koolaid fantasies spun-up by the Murdoch-Limbaugh hate machine. Heck, even though "culture war" is verifiably the worst direct treason against the United States of America since Fort Sumter, that isn't what boggles most.
It's the stupidity. The vast and nearly uniform dumbitudinousness of ignoring what has happened to conservatism, a transformation of nearly all of the salient traits of Barry Goldwater from:

Rudy Giuliani photo

“I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

While campaigning in Cincinnati, as quoted in The New York Times (11 August 2007)

W. Somerset Maugham photo
Sarah Schulman photo

“There is no correlation between having the ability to punish and being right. More often than not, the wrong people get punished. And the punishers use their power to keep from being accountable.”

Sarah Schulman (1958) American writer

Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair (2016)

Related topics