“The reason for it all, nobody who is actually engaged in it can tell you, except the bosses, who believe that these sacred rites of composing dull letters and solemnly filing them away are observed in order that they may buy the large automobiles in which they do not have time to take the air.”

The Job (1917)

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Sinclair Lewis136

American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright 1885–1951

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“In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.”

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“A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist — nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix things up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.”

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“A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.”

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“You don't have to be 'adults'… but be someone who can take responsibility for their own words and actions. Believe it or not, that's actually harder.”

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“You see, I divide men into three categories: those who have a lot of money, those who have none at all and those who have a little. The first want to keep what they have: their interest is to maintain order; the second want to take what they do not have: their interest is to destroy the existing order and to establish one which is profitable to them. They each are realist, people with whom one can agree. The third group want to overthrow the social order to take what they do not have, while still preserving it so that no one takes away what they have. Thus, they preserve in fact what they destroy in theory, or they destroy in fact what they seem to preserve. Those are the idealists.”

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Act 3, sc. 3
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“It’s frightening what these Moonies can do to the family unit.. I get letters from parents all over the country telling me the same story.. The kids are swept along by his outfit and then taken away for a few days to a ‘workshop.’ By the time the parents see their kids again – if they can manage to see them – the kids are starry-eyed and ready to take on anyone who disagrees with them. It’s a form of hypnotism. There is something very unhealthy going on.”

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“Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and you lose them. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

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2005-09
Context: Well, what we're going to do is get rid of all these buttons, and just make a giant screen—a giant screen. Now, how are we going to communicate (with) this? We don't want to carry around a mouse, right? So what are we going to do? Oh, a stylus, right? We're going to use a stylus. No. —No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and you lose them. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus. So let's not use a stylus.

“I meet amateur composers all the time who have music flooding through their heads, apparently, but they have no technical ability at all. They don’t actually have the faintest idea how to put it down on the page. These days you can actually get away with that, because you sort of mess around and track it, and all those things. But to my mind, that balance between the excitement of what is called inspiration or just simply a good idea, and the technical routine that goes into writing music down at all, is what makes a composer. You can’t have one without the other and be a complete composer. I can’t imagine how you could.”

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“Don't let anyone tell you that our country is weak. We're not. Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes. We do. And most of all, don't believe anyone who says: “I alone can fix it.””

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“Sun is one of many US companies that file software patents regularly, the reason we file software patents regularly is the same reason that Americans buy guns. Americans buy guns, because Americans buy guns. American corporations file software patents because American corporations file software patents.”

Simon Phipps computer scientist

Keynote Speech at FOSDEM 2007: Liberating Java http://ftp.belnet.be/mirrors/FOSDEM/2007/FOSDEM2007-Liberating-Java.ogg

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Sinclair Lewis136

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