Binary Quotes

• I don't think there's anything unique about human intellience. All the nuerons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion.

  Bill Gates

  Fashion, Unique, Thinking

  "Drudge Hollywood: The Galaxy according to Gates" by Matt Drudge, www.wired.com. January 6, 1997.

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• Think binary. When matter meets antimatter, both vanish, into pure energy. But both existed; I mean, there was a condition we'll call "existence." Think of one and minus one. Together they add up to zero, nothing, nada, niente, right? Picture them together, then picture them separating-peeling apart. ... Now you have something, you have two somethings, where once you had nothing.

  John Updike

  Zero, Mean, Science

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• There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numerals, and those who don't.

  Ian Stewart

  People, World, Linux

  Ian Stewart (2010). “Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities”, p.89, Profile Books

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• In this business if you're good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten.

  Peter Lynch

  Luck, Investing, Nine

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• Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.

  Gautama Buddha

  Positive, Inspiring, Wise

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• Since we do operate in a binary world, if there's something that cannot be this or that, it drives us crazy.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Crazy, World, Ifs

  "Chuck Palahniuk in conversation with Tom Spanbauer". Interview with Kathryn Borel, www.believermag.com. May 2014.

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• When I see big movies that are only about good versus evil, and the good guy wins, I only can think we're in a far more complicated world than that. I frankly think that this binary philosophy is actually a dangerous way to look at the world.

  Gavin Hood

  Philosophy, Winning, Thinking

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

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• Culture is sustained in our synapses...It's more than what can be reduced to binary code and uploaded onto the Net. To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers.

  Nicholas G. Carr

  Memories, Mind, Generations

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• Any sufficiently crisp question can be answered by a single binary digit-0 or 1, yes or no.

  Carl Sagan

  Yes Or No, Crisps

  Carl Sagan (2012). “Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence”, p.23, Ballantine Books

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• There is no binary division to be made between what one says and what one does not say; we must try to determine the different ways of not saying things.

  Michel Foucault

  Trying, Doe, Different

  Michel Foucault (2012). “The History of Sexuality: An Introduction”, p.27, Vintage

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• At its most fundamental, information is a binary choice. In other words, a single bit of information is one yes-or-no choice.

  James Gleick

  Choices, Fundamentals, Information

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• I think normative or binary lenses for seeing bodies often crush or delegitimize other felt physical experiences of being and desiring. I've found that such inadequate ways of understanding bodies can be - but aren't always - based on biological perspectives.

  Jenny Johnson

  Crush, Thinking, Perspective

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I'm a very binary person in a bad way where it's like everything is either totally great or totally awful.

  Kathleen Hanna

  Awful, Way, Persons

  "Feeling Myself: Kathleen Hanna Gets Back to Work". Interview with Laura Snapes, pitchfork.com. June 5, 2015.

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• This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.

  Richard Powers

  Book, Character, Expression

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• Normally, I tend to be a very binary filmmaker. You give me a problem and a destination and I say, "All right. If you want to get from here to here, there's a series of if/then's that will get you there. And if you have other stuff you want to do along the way, I'll give you all the if/then's that are caused by that."

  Christopher McQuarrie

  Giving, Want, Stuff

  Source: screenrant.com

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• The simplest kind of decision is binary: that is, the question can be answered, in principle at least, by either yes or no.

  E. J. W. Barber

  Decision, Principles, Kind

  E. J. W. Barber (1974). “Archaeological Decipherment: A Handbook”

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• Digital time does not flow; it flicks. Like any binary, discrete decision, it is either here or there. In contrast to our experience of the passing of time, digital time is always in the now, or in no time. It is still. Poised.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Decision, Doe, Flow

  Douglas Rushkoff (2013). “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now”, p.55, Penguin

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• There's a sense of productivity which cripples us terribly. We either have to be doing something worthwile or not. We are back to our little binary male-female code.

  Frederick Lenz

  Taoism, Males, Female

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• We move away from only the binary boxes of "masculine" or "feminine" and begin to live along the full human continuum of identity and expression.

  Gloria Steinem

  Moving, Expression, Identity

  Source: transadvocate.com

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• Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.

  Bill Gates

  Simple, Hands, People

  "Unleash the Billionaire Within: Learn the Mastermind Principles for Acquiring Wealth Beyond Imagination". Book by Esmonde Holowaty, p. 298, 2011.

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• Today, we've got what seems to me to be binary-choice politics: black and white, ones and zeros, either you are with me or against me. How did we get here?

  David E. Hoffman

  Black And White, Choices, Today

  "Ronald Reagan Dies". Live Discussion, www.washingtonpost.com. June 6, 2004.

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• Faith is not so much a binary pole as a quantum state, which tends to indeterminacy when closely examined.

  John Updike

  States, Quantum

  "The Future of Faith" by John Updike, www.newyorker.com. November 29, 1999.

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• Chair or no chair: a binary relation. But the vicissitudes of moving the body around are infinite. You never know what a person in a chair can do.

  Sarah Manguso

  Moving, Body, Infinite

  Sarah Manguso (2011). “The Two Kinds of Decay”, p.49, Granta

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• I think there are probably too many hedge fund managers in the world, as well as active fund managers. The hedge fund industry is very efficient. We see a lot of hedge funds open and a lot close. It's very binary. You either succeed or fail in the hedge fund world. If you succeed, the amount the managers make it beyond most people's wildest dreams of wealth.

  Martin Gilbert

  Dream, Thinking, World

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• This common and unfortunate fact of the lack of adequate presentation of basic ideas and motivations of almost any mathematical theory is probably due to the binary nature of mathematical perception. Either you have no inkling of an idea, or, once you have understood it, the very idea appears so embarrassingly obvious that you feel reluctant to say it aloud.

  Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov

  Motivation, Math, Ideas

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