Ifs Quotes - Page 13

• If, however, one factor is too successful, it will continue to be the winning factor regardless of the variation in the other factors over the range of variation in the conditions, and therefore will stifle the development of other advantageous factors until the conditions change sufficiently that it no longer is the winning factor. At this point, the whole population is ill prepared for the change, and may well perish entirely if the winning factor accidentally becomes the matching factor for a disease or a predator.

  Erik Naggum

  Successful, Winning, Population

  "O'reilly subjugated to the Lisp juggenaut". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 18, 2004.

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• Elegance is necessarily unnatural, only achieveable at great expense. If you just do something, it won't be elegant, but if you do it and then see what might be more elegant, and do it again, you might, after an unknown number of iterations, get something that is very elegant.

  Erik Naggum

  Numbers, Might, Elegance

  "Filk, puns, and other time wasting". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. October 25, 1998.

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• Structure is nothing if it is all you got. Skeletons spook people if they try to walk around on their own. I really wonder why XML does not.

  Erik Naggum

  Skeletons, People, Trying

  "The horror that is XML". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. March 7, 2002.

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• I have argued that a religion or a philosophy cannot speak about facts of the world - if it does, it is now or will eventually be wrong - but it can and should speak about the relevance and ranking of facts and observations.

  Erik Naggum

  Philosophy, Doe, World

  "Philosophy of Lisp programmers". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. June 22, 2002.

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• If car manufacturers made cars according to spec the same way software vendors make software according to spec, all five wheels would be of widely differing sizes, it would take one person to steer and another to work the pedals and yet another to operate the user-friendly menu-driven dashboard, and if it would not drive straight ahead without a lot of effort, civil engineers would respond by building spiraling roads around each city.

  Erik Naggum

  Cities, Car, Effort

  "What obstacles do Common Lisp programmers face?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. January 12, 2002.

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• Gotos aren't damnable to begin with. If you aren't smart enough to distinguish what's bad about some gotos from all gotos, goto hell.

  Erik Naggum

  Smart, Hell, Enough

  "Re: destroying CLOS objects". Usenet article, groups.google.com. October 14, 2000.

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• I honestly believe that sound commercialism is the best test of true value in art. People work hard for their money and if they won't part with it for your product the chances are that your product hasn't sufficient value. An artist or writer hasn't any monopoly .... If the public response to his artistry is lacking, he'd do well to spend more time analyzing what's the matter with his work, and less time figuring what's the matter with the public.

  Berton Braley

  Art, Believe, Hard Work

  Berton Braley (1934). “Pegasus Pulls a Hack: Memoirs of a Modern Minstrel”

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• When Death puts out our Flame, the Snuff will tell, If we were Wax, or Tallow by the smell.

  Masao Abe

  Death, Flames, Smell

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• Adoration is not some fervent spiritual or poetic exercise reserved for a chosen few. I believe the human race will die out and destroy nature if it does not learn again how to adore God, the God in all of us, God shining and living in nature, and learn again how to act from and in that spirit of adoration.

  Andrew Harvey

  Spiritual, Believe, Exercise

  Andrew Harvey (1994). “Dialogues with a Modern Mystic”, Quest Books

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• God made the world, My Lord, and looked at it, and saw that it was good. Yes. But what if the world had looked back at him, to see whether he was good or not?

  Isak Dinesen

  What If, World, Saws

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.34, Vintage

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• So if waiting is an aggravation, it is at least partly because we do not like being reminded of our limits. We like doing -- earning, buying, selling, building, planting, driving, baking -- making things happen, whereas waiting is essentially a matter of being -- stopping, sitting, listening, looking, breathing, wondering, praying. It can feel pretty helpless to wait for someone or something that is not here yet and that will or will not arrive in its own good time, which is not the same thing as our own good time.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Breathing, Aggravation, Waiting

  Barbara Brown Taylor (1995). “Gospel Medicine”, p.153, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Santa is a much bigger and more powerful faery than Toot, and I don't know his true name anyway. You'd never see me trying to nab Saint Nick in a magic circle even if I did. I don't think anyone has stones that big.

  Jim Butcher

  Powerful, Thinking, Circles

  Jim Butcher (2000). “Storm Front: Book one of The Dresden Files”, p.74, Penguin Group

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• Murphy had found a spot on the street, which made me wonder if she didn't have some kind of magical talent after all. Only some kind of precognitive ESP could have gotten us a parking space on the street, in the shadow of a building, with both of us in sight of the apartment building's entrance.

  Jim Butcher

  Sight, Space, Shadow

  Jim Butcher (2008). “White Night: A Novel of the Dresden Files”, p.50, Penguin

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• in McAnally's pub and grill, there aren't any service people. According to Mac, if you can't get up and walk over to pick up your own order, you don't need to be there at all.

  Jim Butcher

  Order, People, Needs

  Jim Butcher (2001). “Fool Moon: Book two of The Dresden Files”, p.6, Penguin

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• I have actually programmed a fair bit in Perl, like I have C++ code published with my name on it. Other things I have tried and have no intention to do again if I can at all avoid it include smoking, getting drunk enough to puke and waste the whole next day with hang-over, breaking a leg in a violent car crash, getting mugged in New York City, or travel with Aeroflot.

  Erik Naggum

  New York, Cities, Names

  Re: How is perl braindamaged? (was Re: Is LISP dying?) (Usenet article), groups.google.com. July 28, 1999.

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• Have you considered the option of getting the joke? If not, try it now and redeem your soul.

  Erik Naggum

  Soul, Trying, Jokes

  Re: Lisp Machines considered Inferior (Usenet article), groups.google.com. November 18, 2002.

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• What people "want" is a function of what they learn is available. If you wish to sell something, you'd better understand that you can't give people what they want in the market today, because what they want today is what they can already get. You have to discover what they really want, and find some way to give that physical shape.

  Erik Naggum

  People, Giving, Wish

  "Creation of lisp machine/lispOS". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. May 1, 1997.

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• You are born supernaturally through faith, by the grace of God, into the kingdom of righteousness; but you are born a little babe, that is all; and if you make any progress from that point on, it must be by work, by sacrifice, by the practice of Christian virtues, by benevolence, by self-denial, by resisting the adversary, by making valiant war for God and against sin; and on no other basis, am I authorized in giving you a hope that you may come to manhood in Christ Jesus.

  Charles Henry Fowler

  Christian, Jesus, War

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 564, 1895.

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• We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Feet, Would Be, World

  W. V. QUINE, Willard Van Orman Quine (1987). “Quiddities”, p.231, Harvard University Press

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• The world was sick, and the ills from which it was suffering were mainly due to the perversion of man, his inability to live at peace with himself. The microbe was no longer the main enemy; science was sufficiently advanced to be able to cope with it admirably. If it were not for such barriers as superstition, ignorance, religious intolerance, misery and poverty.

  Brock Chisholm

  Religious, Ignorance, Men

  "Public health, a progressive science". Monthly Bulletin of the Philippine Health Service, 24, 1948.

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• If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more.

  Eric Shinseki

  Irrelevance, Dislike

  "Marines Turned Soldiers". National Review Online, December 10, 2001.

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• Luck, if it mean nothing more than an event of which the cause is not apparent, is a term that may be employed without error; but if it means, as it generally does, an event which has no cause at all, a mere chance, it is a bad word, a heathen term; drop it from your vocabulary; trust nothing to luck, nor expect anything from it; avoid all practical use or dependence upon this or its kindred words, fate, chance, fortune.

  John Angell James

  Mean, Fate, Errors

  John Angell James (1851). “The young man's friend and guide through life to immortality”, p.180

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• If the ox could think, it would attribute oxality to God.

  Xenocrates

  God, Thinking, Attributes

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• Antipater uses us favourably if he looks upon us as staves, but very hardly if he considers us as freemen.

  Xenocrates

  Looks, Use, Look Up

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• Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?

  Empress Dowager Cixi

  Fighting, Yield, Why Not

  "The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China". Book by Keith Laidler, p. 221, January 21, 2005.

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