Quotes about program
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Richard Stallman photo

“You see, some people have a talent for programming. At ten to thirteen years old, typically, they're fascinated, and if they use a program, they want to know: “How does it do this?” But when they ask the teacher, if it's proprietary, the teacher has to say: “I'm sorry, it's a secret, we can't find out.” Which means education is forbidden. A proprietary program is the enemy of the spirit of education. It's knowledge withheld, so it should not be tolerated in a school, even though there may be plenty of people in the school who don't care about programming, don't want to learn this. Still, because it's the enemy of the spirit of education, it shouldn't be there in the school.
But if the program is free, the teacher can explain what he knows, and then give out copies of the source code, saying: “Read it and you'll understand everything.” And those who are really fascinated, they will read it! And this gives them an opportunity to start to learn how to be good programmers.
To learn to be a good programmer, you'll need to recognize that certain ways of writing code, even if they make sense to you and they are correct, they're not good because other people will have trouble understanding them. Good code is clear code that others will have an easy time working on when they need to make further changes.
How do you learn to write good clear code? You do it by reading lots of code, and writing lots of code. Well, only free software offers the chance to read the code of large programs that we really use. And then you have to write lots of code, which means you have to write changes in large programs.
How do you learn to write good code for the large programs? You have to start small, which does not mean small program, oh no! The challenges of the code for large programs don't even begin to appear in small programs. So the way you start small at writing code for large programs is by writing small changes in large programs. And only free software gives you the chance to do that.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

A Free Digital Society - What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad? http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-digital-society.html#education; Lecture at Sciences Po in Paris (19 October 2011)]
2010s

Aron Ra photo
C. A. R. Hoare photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Ahmed Djemal photo
Glenn Beck photo

“Is there anything more powerful than Google? And our government is in bed with them, as we will show you tomorrow, in unbelievable ways. Unbelievable ways. We have, um, and have had for a while, people inside of Google who have alerted this program to things. There are people inside of Google who are terrified of some of the things that Google is doing and is involved in.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2011-02-15
Beck: "We Have … People Inside Of Google That Have Alerted This Program To Things" And Are "Terrified" Of Things Google Does
Media Matters for America
2011-02-15
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102150016
2011-02-15
2010s, 2011

John D. Carmack photo

“The situation is so much better for programmers today - a cheap used PC, a linux CD, and an internet account, and you have all the tools necessary to work your way to any level of programming skill you want to shoot for.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

Quoted in David Kushner, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture Chapter 14, p. 254.

Larry Hogan photo

“And remember, every penny that is added to one program, must be taken from another.”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

" State of the State Address: A New Direction for Maryland http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/02/04/state-of-the-state-address/" (4 February 2015)

John O. Brennan photo
Doug McIlroy photo

“This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.”

Doug McIlroy (1932) American computer scientist, mathematician, engineer, and programmer

Doug McIlroy (2003). The Art of Unix Programming: Basics of the Unix Philosophy http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html

John Turner photo
Anton Chekhov photo
Donald Rumsfeld photo

“After he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein, he (Gaddafi) did not want to be Saddam Hussein. He gave up his nuclear program.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

Rumsfeld doesn't support sending U.S. troops into Libya http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/08/rumsfeld.interview/index.html March 9, 2011.
2010s

Donald J. Trump photo

“Today, I would like to provide the American people with an update on the White House transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed are being brought in and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to Make America Great Again. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America First. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America – creating wealth and jobs for American workers. As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time. These include the following: On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy – including shale energy and clean coal – creating many millions of high-paying jobs. That's what we want, that's what we've been waiting for. On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated, it's so important. On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks, and all other form of attacks. On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. On ethics reform, as part of our plan to Drain the Swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administration – and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class. I will provide more updates in the coming days, as we work together to Make America Great Again for everyone.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8 (21 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Adolf Hitler photo
Margaret Sanger photo

“[Charity] conceals a stupid cruelty, because it is not courageous enough to face unpleasant facts. Aside from the question of the unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitably hasten, we may question its value even to the normal though unfortunate mother. For it is never the intention of such philanthropy to give the poor over-burdened and often undernourished mother of the slum the opportunity to make the choice herself, to decide whether she wishes time after time to bring children into the world. It merely says 'Increase and multiply: We are prepared to help you do this.' Whereas the great majority of mothers realize the grave responsibility they face in keeping alive and rearing the children they have already brought into the world, the maternity center would teach them how to have more. The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid bringing into the world her eighth. … Such philanthropy, as Dean Inge has so unanswerably pointed out, is kind only to be cruel, and unwittingly promotes precisely the results most deprecated. It encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Source: The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, Chapter 5, "The Cruelty of Charity"

Ilana Mercer photo

“Conservatives question government programs. War is a government program. If they hope to retain a modicum of philosophical integrity, conservatives will have to include a critique of the state's warfare machine in their case against its welfare apparatus.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Praying to the Military Moloch," http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/06/praying-to-military-moloch.html Economic Policy Journal, June 6, 2014.
2010s, 2014

Dennis Kucinich photo
Gregory Balestrero photo
John Scalzi photo
Michele Simon photo
Linus Torvalds photo

“It was such a relief to program in user mode for a change. Not having to care about the small stuff is wonderful.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Message to Git mailing list, 2005-04-14, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/87,
2000s, 2005

Bill Maher photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“The levelling of inflexion and of wordplay became part of the program of applied knowledge in the seventeenth century.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 265

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Jimmy Carter photo

“This war has been motivated by pride or arrogance, by a desire to control oil wealth, by a desire to implant our programs.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

on the Diane Rehm Show.
Post-Presidency

Don Imus photo
Ward Cunningham photo

“Putting a new feature into a program is important, but refactoring so new features can be added in the future is equally important.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

Crucible of Creativity (2005)
Context: Putting a new feature into a program is important, but refactoring so new features can be added in the future is equally important. The ability to do things in the future is something that I consider suppleness, like clay your hands that accepts your expression. Programs and documents get brittle very quickly. Wiki imagines a more dynamic environment where we accept change...

Martin Fowler photo

“They terminated the program because it was publicly exposed, and, outside the university’s ideological bubble, it was simply indefensible.”

Wendy Kaminer (1949) American lawyer

"Re-Thinking Thought Reform" (4 November 2007) http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/freeforall/archive/2007/11/04/Re-Thinking-Thought-Reform.aspx
Context: University of Delaware President Patrick Harker grudgungly terminated the ideological re-education program exposed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (and reported here last week.) FIRE has the story, which includes troubling accounts of threatened retaliation against students who declined to defend the now defunct "residence life" program and to demonize FIRE as an ideologically biased, conservative organization.  (In fact, FIRE is a civil liberties group that advocates for the rights of all students, regardless of ideology.)
This is a victory for freedom of speech and thought, of course, and one that demonstrates why preserving free speech is so essential. University of Delaware officials did not terminate this program because they suddenly realized the wrongfulness of subjecting students to mandatory thought reform. They terminated the program because it was publicly exposed, and, outside the university’s ideological bubble, it was simply indefensible.

John D. Barrow photo
Richard Stallman photo

“The hard part of programming is the same regardless of the language.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

"You broke the Internet. We're making ourselves a GNU one." (August 2013) https://gnunet.org/internetistschuld (around 02:16)
2010s
Context: Programming is programming. If you get good at programming, it doesn't matter which language you learned it in, because you'll be able to do programming in any language. The hard part of programming is the same regardless of the language. And if you have a talent for that, and you learned it here, you can take it over there. Oh, one thing: if you want to get a picture of a programming at its most powerful, you should learn Lisp or Scheme because they are more elegant and powerful than other languages.

Martin Fowler photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo

“I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 25
Context: I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do. I think that kind of approach starts it at the end and presumes the end is the beginning. Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. <!-- p. 304

Richard Stallman photo

“I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)
Context: I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will.
So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away.

George W. Bush photo
Ursula Goodenough photo

“The impetus to figure out what's going on is still very much programmed into our highly complex brains.”

Ursula Goodenough (1943) American biologist

Science and Spirit interview (2004)
Context: All life has a kind of seamlessness. All creatures have to be aware of their environment, and there has been an evolution of the capacities needed for detecting increasingly complex stimuli. I have no problem calling this "meaning," since all creatures pick out meaningful facets of their environment. For the first creatures, these facets were physical and mediated by receptor proteins. Sperm and eggs find each other by protein shapes; photosynthetic bacteria find light by protein shapes. The impetus to figure out what's going on is still very much programmed into our highly complex brains.

Lawrence Lessig photo

“While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

May the Source Be With You (2001)
Context: While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible. Once a company that produces a certain product goes out of business, it has no simple way to uncover how its product encoded data. The code is thus lost, and the software is inaccessible. Knowledge has been destroyed.

Wernher von Braun photo

“I would like simply to point out that the space program has by all standards become America's greatest generator of new ideas in science and technology.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application (1976)
Context: Without wanting to seem overly partisan, I would like simply to point out that the space program has by all standards become America's greatest generator of new ideas in science and technology. It is essentially an organization for opening new frontiers, physically and intellectually. Today we live in a different world because in 1958 Americans accepted the challenge of space and made the required national investment to meet it.
Young people today are learning a new science, but even more importantly, they are viewing the earth and man's relationship to it quite differently — and I think perhaps more humanly — than we did fifteen years ago. The space program is the first large scientific and technological activity in history that offers to bring the people of all nations together instead of setting them further apart.

Elizabeth Hand photo

“I'm an utterly orthodox feminist in the political or social sense: I want equal rights for women, period, and I vote that way. I support social programs that help women and children; I'm pro-choice, in favor of anything that makes it easier for women to raise their kids, with or without men, in conventional or unconventional family units.”

Elizabeth Hand (1957) American writer

Apocalypse Descending (2002)
Context: I'm an utterly orthodox feminist in the political or social sense: I want equal rights for women, period, and I vote that way. I support social programs that help women and children; I'm pro-choice, in favor of anything that makes it easier for women to raise their kids, with or without men, in conventional or unconventional family units.
But do I think the world would be a better place if it were run solely by women? No; not any more than I think a solely patriarchal model is an ideal.

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower http://web.archive.org/web/20100216204935/http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1147.cfm, his brother (8 November 1954) More information at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/ike.asp
1950s
Context: Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Martin Fowler photo
Stanley Knowles photo

“If we can find the money - in other words, the raw materials and the men to do the work - to build skyscrapers and luxurious bank buildings in our large cities, if we can afford to maintain an elaborate defence establishment, if we can cope with the social costs that flow from life on the "other side of the tracks," we can well afford the expenditure of public money in programs designed to eliminate every last slum dwelling there is in this country, in programs designed to redevelop our communities, both urban and rural, toward the day when all our people will live in good homes.”

Stanley Knowles (1908–1997) Canadian politician

Source: The New Party - (1961), Chapter 5, O Canada, p. 55-56
Context: Yet another means by which to distribute more equally the wealth our people create is by an all-out program in the building of homes. Where did we ever get the idea that it is all right for some Canadian children to grow up in slums and others in mansions? If we can find the money - in other words, the raw materials and the men to do the work - to build skyscrapers and luxurious bank buildings in our large cities, if we can afford to maintain an elaborate defence establishment, if we can cope with the social costs that flow from life on the "other side of the tracks," we can well afford the expenditure of public money in programs designed to eliminate every last slum dwelling there is in this country, in programs designed to redevelop our communities, both urban and rural, toward the day when all our people will live in good homes.

“No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it’s first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren’t limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Review of “Eyes of Amber”, by Joan D. Vinge (as anthologized in New Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/yet-more-sf-about-women-by-women, 2015
2010s
Context: There’s a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It came to me after reading Niven’s “All The Bridges Rusting.” In this story, humans have by the early 21st century explored the Solar System and sent not just one but two crewed ships to Alpha Centauri … despite which the characters moan endlessly about the dire state of the space program. “Eyes of Amber” would be another example of the Rusting Bridges [Rule]: No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it’s first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren’t limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering.

Ward Cunningham photo

“It was a turning point in my programming career when I realized that I didn't have to win every argument.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Collective Ownership of Code and Text
Context: It was a turning point in my programming career when I realized that I didn't have to win every argument. I'd be talking about code with someone, and I'd say, "I think the best way to do it is A." And they'd say, "I think the best way to do it is B. I'd say, "Well no, it's really A." And they'd say, "Well, we want to do B." It was a turning point for me when I could say, "Fine. Do B. It's not going to hurt us that much if I'm wrong. It's not going to hurt us that much if I'm right and you do B, because, we can correct mistakes. So lets find out if it's a mistake."

John D. Barrow photo

“Mathematics became an experimental subject. Individuals could follow previously intractable problems by simply watching what happened when they were programmed into a personal computer.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

Introduction
Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of Science (2008)
Context: Mathematics became an experimental subject. Individuals could follow previously intractable problems by simply watching what happened when they were programmed into a personal computer.... The PC revolution has made science more visual and more immediate.... by creating films of imaginary experiences of mathematical worlds.... Words are no longer enough.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Address to ANPA
Context: No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers — I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Gus Grissom photo

“If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”

Gus Grissom (1926–1967) American astronaut

On the dangers and importance of the mission of going to the moon in "Gemini : A Personal Account of Man's Venture Into Space (1968) by Virgil I. Grissom
Context: If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis, only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
John D. Barrow photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)
Context: Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel. But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

Art Buchwald photo

“Every time you think television has hit its lowest ebb, a new…program comes along to make you wonder where you thought the ebb was.”

Art Buchwald (1925–2007) journalist, humorist, United States Marine

Have I Ever Lied to You? (1968).

Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“A programmer? But was that a respectable profession? For after all, what was programming? Where was the sound body of knowledge that could support it as an intellectually respectable discipline? I remember quite vividly how I envied my hardware colleagues, who, when asked about their professional competence, could at least point out that they knew everything about vacuum tubes, amplifiers and the rest, whereas I felt that, when faced with that question, I would stand empty-handed.”

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

Dijkstra (1972) The Humble Programmer http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html (EWD340).
1970s
Context: After having programmed for some three years, I had a discussion with A. van Wijngaarden, who was then my boss at the Mathematical Center in Amsterdam, a discussion for which I shall remain grateful to him as long as I live. The point was that I was supposed to study theoretical physics at the University of Leiden simultaneously, and as I found the two activities harder and harder to combine, I had to make up my mind, either to stop programming and become a real, respectable theoretical physicist, or to carry my study of physics to a formal completion only, with a minimum of effort, and to become....., yes what? A programmer? But was that a respectable profession? For after all, what was programming? Where was the sound body of knowledge that could support it as an intellectually respectable discipline? I remember quite vividly how I envied my hardware colleagues, who, when asked about their professional competence, could at least point out that they knew everything about vacuum tubes, amplifiers and the rest, whereas I felt that, when faced with that question, I would stand empty-handed. Full of misgivings I knocked on van Wijngaarden’s office door, asking him whether I could “speak to him for a moment”; when I left his office a number of hours later, I was another person. For after having listened to my problems patiently, he agreed that up till that moment there was not much of a programming discipline, but then he went on to explain quietly that automatic computers were here to stay, that we were just at the beginning and could not I be one of the persons called to make programming a respectable discipline in the years to come? This was a turning point in my life and I completed my study of physics formally as quickly as I could. One moral of the above story is, of course, that we must be very careful when we give advice to younger people; sometimes they follow it!

Richard Stallman photo

“What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

Interview in Hackers — Wizards of the Electronic Age (1985)
1980s
Context: What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done."

Wernher von Braun photo

“The space program is the first large scientific and technological activity in history that offers to bring the people of all nations together instead of setting them further apart.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application (1976)
Context: Without wanting to seem overly partisan, I would like simply to point out that the space program has by all standards become America's greatest generator of new ideas in science and technology. It is essentially an organization for opening new frontiers, physically and intellectually. Today we live in a different world because in 1958 Americans accepted the challenge of space and made the required national investment to meet it.
Young people today are learning a new science, but even more importantly, they are viewing the earth and man's relationship to it quite differently — and I think perhaps more humanly — than we did fifteen years ago. The space program is the first large scientific and technological activity in history that offers to bring the people of all nations together instead of setting them further apart.

Regina E. Dugan photo

“Its programs last, on average, only three to five years.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)
Context: Over the past 50 years, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has produced an unparalleled number of breakthroughs. Arguably, it has the longest-standing, most consistent track record of radical invention in history. Its innovations include the internet; RISC computing; global positioning satellites; stealth technology; unmanned aerial vehicles, or “drones”; and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), which are now used in everything from air bags to ink-jet printers to video games like the Wii. Though the U. S. military was the original customer for DARPA’s applications, the agency’s advances have played a central role in creating a host of multibillion-dollar industries.
What makes DARPA’s long list of accomplishments even more impressive is the agency’s swiftness, relatively tiny organization, and comparatively modest budget. Its programs last, on average, only three to five years.

Jack Valenti photo

“The entire rostrum of the rating program rests on the assumption of responsibility by parents.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

The Voluntary Movie Rating System (2004)
Context: The basic mission of the rating system is a simple one: to offer to parents some advance information about movies so that parents can decide what movies they want their children to see or not to see. The entire rostrum of the rating program rests on the assumption of responsibility by parents.

Ron Paul photo

“One of the worst aspects of the census is its focus on classifying people by race. When government tells us it wants information to help any given group, it assumes every individual who shares certain physical characteristics has the same interests, or wants the same things from government. This is an inherently racist and offensive assumption. The census, like so many federal policies and programs, inflames racism by encouraging Americans to see themselves as members of racial groups fighting each other for a share of the federal pie.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

None of Your Business! https://web.archive.org/web/20120127122559/http://www.ronpaularchive.com/2004/07/none-of-your-business (12 July 2004).
2000s, 2001-2005
Context: I introduced an amendment last week that would have eliminated funds for this intrusive survey in a spending bill, explaining on the House floor that perhaps the American people dont appreciate being threatened by Big Brother. The amendment was met by either indifference or hostility, as most members of Congress either dont care about or actively support government snooping into the private affairs of citizens. One of the worst aspects of the census is its focus on classifying people by race. When government tells us it wants information to help any given group, it assumes every individual who shares certain physical characteristics has the same interests, or wants the same things from government. This is an inherently racist and offensive assumption. The census, like so many federal policies and programs, inflames racism by encouraging Americans to see themselves as members of racial groups fighting each other for a share of the federal pie.

Marvin Minsky photo

“In today's computer science curricula … almost all their time is devoted to formal classification of syntactic language types, defeatist unsolvability theories, folklore about systems programming, and generally trivial fragments of "optimization of logic design"”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

the latter often in situations where the art of heuristic programming has far outreached the special-case "theories" so grimly taught and tested — and invocations about programming style almost sure to be outmoded before the student graduates.
Turing Award Lecture "Form and Content in Computer Science" (1969) http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/TuringLecture/TuringLecture.html, in Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery 17 (2) (April 1970)

“Are you sure you are not merely "programmed" in life by what by chance events happens to you?”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)
Context: When you take a course in Euclidean geometry is not the teacher putting a... learning program into you?... You enter the course and cannot do problems; the teacher puts into you a program and at the end of the course you can solve such problems.... Are you sure you are not merely "programmed" in life by what by chance events happens to you?

George Marshall photo

“You know, I know, all of us know that the time factor is the vital consideration — and vital is the correct meaning of the term — of our national defense program”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Speech to the Army ordinance Association (11 October 1939); The Papers of George Catlett Marshall Vol 2 (1986) by the George C. Marshall Foundation http://www.marshallfoundation.org/index.html, Ch. 2 "The Time Factor"
Context: You know, I know, all of us know that the time factor is the vital consideration — and vital is the correct meaning of the term — of our national defense program; that we must never be caught in the same situation we found ourselves in 1917.

Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists. The best conservatives can often give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the Fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

“Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” in Christian Work #102 (10 June 1922), p. 716–722 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/
Context: Already all of us must have heard about the people who call themselves the Fundamentalists. Their apparent intention is to drive out of the evangelical churches men and women of liberal opinions. I speak of them the more freely because there are no two denominations more affected by them than the Baptist and the Presbyterian. We should not identify the Fundamentalists with the conservatives. All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists. The best conservatives can often give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the Fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant.

Alan Moore photo

“The whole program of evolution seems to be to diversify, because in diversity there is strength.
And if you apply that on a social level, then you get something like anarchy.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)
Context: The whole program of evolution seems to be to diversify, because in diversity there is strength.
And if you apply that on a social level, then you get something like anarchy. Everybody is recognized as having their own abilities, their own particular agendas, and everybody has their own need to work cooperatively with other people. So it’s conceivable that the same kind of circumstances that obtain in a small human grouping, like a family or like a collection of friends, could be made to obtain in a wider human grouping like a civilization.

Ward Cunningham photo

“My specific purpose for the first wiki was to create an environment where we might link together each other's experience to discover the pattern language of programming.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki
Context: My specific purpose for the first wiki was to create an environment where we might link together each other's experience to discover the pattern language of programming. I had previously worked with a HyperCard stack that was set up to achieve the same kind of goal. I knew people liked to read and author in that HyperCard stack, but it was single user.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“The details of such disarmament programs are manifestly critical and complex.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)
Context: The details of such disarmament programs are manifestly critical and complex. Neither the United States nor any other nation can properly claim to possess a perfect, immutable formula. But the formula matters less than the faith -- the good faith without which no formula can work justly and effectively. The fruit of success in all these tasks would present the world with the greatest task, and the greatest opportunity, of all. It is this: the dedication of the energies, the resources, and the imaginations of all peaceful nations to a new kind of war. This would be a declared total war, not upon any human enemy but upon the brute forces of poverty and need. The peace we seek, founded upon decent trust and cooperative effort among nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat and timber and rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth. These are the needs that challenge this world in arms.

Bill Moyers photo

“As every volunteer testifies, the Peace Corps is more than a program or mission. It is a way of being in the world. This is a conservative notion because it holds dear the ground of one's own being — the culture and customs that gave meaning to a particular life. But it is a liberal notion for respecting the ground revered by others.”

Bill Moyers (1934) American journalist

"At Large", speech at the Peace Corps twenty-fifth anniversary memorial service (21 September 1986), published in Moyers on Democracy (2008), p. 27<!-- italics in source -->
Context: As every volunteer testifies, the Peace Corps is more than a program or mission. It is a way of being in the world. This is a conservative notion because it holds dear the ground of one's own being — the culture and customs that gave meaning to a particular life. But it is a liberal notion for respecting the ground revered by others. This double helix in America's DNA may yet be the source of a new political and patriotism that could save us from toxic self-absorption.

Harry V. Jaffa photo

“DiLorenzo thinks that slavery was not the real issue in the Civil War, that it was the Whig economic program. Banks, tariffs, internal improvements, and what he calls corporate welfare. And he thinks that the slavery question was really only a sham that was not the real question; it was not the real issue. That's very strange for anybody reading the Lincoln-Douglas debates, since the subject of tariffs was never mentioned.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The South was a Closed Society
Context: DiLorenzo thinks that slavery was not the real issue in the Civil War, that it was the Whig economic program. Banks, tariffs, internal improvements, and what he calls corporate welfare. And he thinks that the slavery question was really only a sham that was not the real question; it was not the real issue. That's very strange for anybody reading the Lincoln-Douglas debates, since the subject of tariffs was never mentioned. The only time the word is used, I think, is when Douglas says that the tariff was one of the questions that the two parties used to discuss. But the only subject discussed in the Lincoln-Douglas debates was slavery in the territories.

“It may be worthwhile to spend a few million dollars to determine the efficacy of program that would involve spending billions of dollars.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 2, Tools of Positive Analysis, p. 24-25

Martin Fowler photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
Terence McKenna photo
Antonie Pannekoek photo
Helena Roerich photo

“Indeed, the most urgent, the most essential task is the education of children and youth... It is usually customary to confuse education with upbringing, but it is time to understand that school education, as it is established in most cases, not only does not contribute to the moral upbringing of youth, but acts inversely. In the Anglo-Saxon countries the schools are occupied mainly with the physical development of youth to the detriment of their mental development. But the excessive enthusiasm for sports leads to the coarsening of character, to mental degeneration, and to new diseases. True, not much better is the situation in home education under the conditions of the modern family. Therefore, it is time to pay most serious attention to the grave and derelict situation of children and youth from the moral point of view. Many lofty concepts are completely out of habitual use, having been replaced by everyday formulas for the easy achievement of the most vulgar comforts and status...The program of education is as broad as life itself. The possibilities for improvement are inexhaustible...We are on the eve of a new approach to and reconstruction of the entire school education... The quantity and speed of new discoveries in all domains of science grow so rapidly that soon contemporary school education will not be able to walk in step with and respond to the new attainments and demands of the time; new methods in the entire system of education will have to be devised...”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

19 April 1938

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo

“I don’t think I’m more inherently likely to do domestic work, or childcare ... It doesn’t come pre-programmed in your vagina, right?”

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie (1977) Nigerian writer

On how she views gender as a social construct in “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘This could be the beginning of a revolution’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/28/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-feminism-racism-sexism-gender-metoo in The Guardian (2018 Apr 28)

Franz Bardon photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“All the more so after the war, the German National Socialist state, which pursued this goal from the beginning, will tirelessly work for the realization of a program that will ultimately lead to a complete elimination of class differences and to the creation of a true socialist community.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech for the Heroes' Memorial Day (21 March 1943) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_Speech_for_the_Heroes%27_Memorial_Day_(21_March_1943)
1940s

Milton Friedman photo
Milton Friedman photo
Milton Friedman photo
Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo

“I don’t think I’m more inherently likely to do domestic work, or childcare … It doesn’t come pre-programmed in your vagina, right?”

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie (1977) Nigerian writer

On how she views gender as a social construct in “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘This could be the beginning of a revolution’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/28/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-feminism-racism-sexism-gender-metoo in The Guardian (2018 Apr 28)

Evo Morales photo

“Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves… his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.”

Evo Morales (1959) Bolivian politician

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton https://consortiumnews.com/tag/ben-norton/ in Bolivia Coup Led by Christian Fascist Paramilitary Leader, a Multi-Millionaire – with Foreign Support https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/12/bolivia-coup-led-by-christian-fascist-paramilitary-leader-a-multi-millionaire-with-foreign-support/, Consortium News, (12 November 2019)
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