* Leslie Lamport: (concurrency mailing list, 1988-1990: Flame re
  distributed processes and granularity)

http://www-i2.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Forschung/MCS/Mailing_List_archive/con_hyperarchive_1988-1990/0077.html:

          I admire philosophers. They have so much to teach us. From
          Aristotle I learned that heavier bodies fall faster than
          lighter ones; Kant showed me that nonEuclidean geometry is
          impossible; and Spinoza proved that there can be at most
          seven planets. And now, the philosophers on the concurrency
          mailing list have told me all the things I can't do because
          I use a logic based on an interleaving model.

  [About the planets, wasn't it Hegel?]

  [Actually I think in support of decent philosophers one could 
  propose Descartes, from whom he learnt algebraic geometry;
  Frege, from whom he learnt the predicate calculus;
  Turing who showed that termination is undecidable; 
  and now Lamport who has given us a logic based 
  on an interleaving model of concurrency.]

  Another one: from a footnote of a letter to the editor CACM Nov 1979

    In the interests of restoring meaning to our language I will
    call programs "programs".  I urge the ACM to do the same.


* David Hilbert, {\em Bull AMS}. {\bf 8}. 102, 437--479.

    "The deep significance of certain problems for the advance of
    mathematical science in general and the important role which they
    play in the work of the individual investigator are not to be
    denied.  As long as a branch of science offers an abundance of
    problems, so long it is alive; a lack of problems foreshadows
    extinction or the cessation of independent development.  Just as
    every human undertaking pursues certain objects, so also
    mathematical research requires its problems.  It is by the
    solution of problems that the investigator tests the temper of his
    steel; he finds new methods and new outlooks, and gains a wider
    and freer horizon."


* J. von Neumann (1943. ``The Mathematician.'' In Works of the
  Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.)

    "As mathematics travels far from its empirical source, or still
    more, if it is a second and third generation only indirectly
    inspired by ideas coming from ``reality,'' it is beset with very
    grave dangers. It becomes more and more purely aestheticizing,
    more and more purely {\em l'art pour l'art}. .... In other words,
    at a great distance from its empirical source, or after much
    ``abstract'' inbreeding, a mathematical subject is in danger of
    degeneration. At the inception the style is usually classical;
    when it shows signs of becoming baroque, then the danger signal is
    up.".


* George Berkeley (Principles of Human Knowledge, 119):

    "Arithmetic has been thought to have for its object abstract ideas
    of Number; of which to understand the properties and mutual
    habitudes, is supposed no mean part of speculative knowledge. The
    opinion of the pure and intellectual nature of numbers in abstract
    has made them in esteem with those philosophers who seem to have
    affected an uncommon fineness and elevation of thought. It hath
    set a price on the most trifling numerical speculations which in
    practice are of no use, but serve only for amusement; and hath
    therefore so far infected the minds of some, that they have
    dreamed of mighty mysteries involved in numbers, and attempted the
    explication of natural things by them.  But, if we inquire into
    our own thoughts, and consider what has been premised, we may
    perhaps entertain a low opinion of those high flights and
    abstractions, and look on all inquiries about numbers only as so
    many difficiles nugae, so far as they are not subservient to
    practice, and promote the benefit of life"

  I imagine this spoken in a Leeds or Yorkshire accent; but ISTR
  he was from Dublin, and probably sounded more like Shane MacGowan.


* Anon:

    The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.

    The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.


* Napier, John b. 1550, Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, Scot.
               d. April 4, 1617, Merchiston Castle
  From the preface to 
  "Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John" (1593). 
  dedicated to whoever was "your Majesty" in Scotland in 1593.

    "Let it be your Majesty's continuall study to reforme the
    universall enormities of your country, and first to begin at your
    Majesty's owne house, familie and court, and purge the same of all
    suspicion of Papists and Atheists and Newtrals, whereof this
    Revelation forthtelleth that the number shall greatly increase in
    these latter daies." 

  It is difficult to imagine this in any other voice than Ian Paisley's,
  but he may have sounded something like Stanley Baxter. 

  See also the beautiful http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Bookpages/Napier10.jpeg:


* Charles Babbage:

 "Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however
 admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English
 mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in
 it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will
 pronounce it impossible; if you peel a potato with it before his eyes,
 he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple." -

 (I saw this in a newsgroup signature, and have not checked it.  It
 appeals to me partly because I regard myself as more Scottish than
 English.)


* The bible:

  http://www.cforc.com/kjv/1_Corinthians/13.html


* John Major, British Tory PM ?? -> ??, about Labour leader Neil Kinnock,
  a notorious windbag:

  "The reason he never stops talking is because he's got nothing
  to say and so he doesn't know when he's said it."


* Mark Thorson (I can't remember or discover who he is):

 "Hopefully, our bones will serve as a source of calcium for whatever
 superior species comes along to replace us."


* Albert Einstein:

 "The difference between stupidity and genius is that
 genius has limits" 


* Alan Perlis

 "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it."

 "In software systems, it is often the early bird that makes the worm."