Recommended quotes (page 5) | Quotes of famous people

“I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach.”

Glenn Gould (1932–1982) Canadian pianist

Gramophone
Context: I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. I really can't think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that -- its humanity.

Life , Music , Thinking , Time

“If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

developerWorks Interviews: Tim Berners-Lee (podcast/audio plus transcript) http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int082206txt.html
Context: Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.

People

“At first, it was hard to sit down and read the things that people were saying. A lot of people would've worked their way up to this position and would've gotten a thick skin over a few years' time. For me, though, all this happened in a few months.”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

People , Way , Time , Reading

“Birds are the most accomplished aeronauts the world has ever seen. They fly high and low, at great speed, and very slowly. And always with extraordinary precision and control.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Opening narration
The Life of Birds (1998)

World , Bird , Speed , Flying

“Therefore we demand as a fundamental law of the state: …”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

The obligation for interest is replaced by the obligation to repay the principal; thus after 20 or 25 years, depending on the interest-rate, the lent capital is repaid and the debt retired. ...
Through intensive enlightenment of the people, it is to be made clear to the people that money is and should be nothing other than a voucher for completed labor; that while every highly developed economy of course has need of money as a medium of exchange, the function of money also ends with that, and in no case should money be lent a supramundane power to grow of itself by means of interest, at the expense of productive labor.
"Manifesto for the Abolition of Enslavement to Interest on Money" (1919)

Law

“Death is an inevitability, isn't it? You become more aware of that when you get to my age. I don't worry about it. I'm ready for it. When I go, I want to go doing what I do best. If I died tomorrow, I couldn't complain. It's been good.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Death , Age

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Variant: This is a test to see if your mission in this life is complete, if you are alive, it isn't.
Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

“If you want more effective programmers, you will discover that they should not waste their time debugging, they should not introduce the bugs to start with.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)

Time