One big pile is better than two little piles. -- Arlo Guthrie

Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.

If we don't improve our ability to deal collectively with complex things, as the problems grow more urgent, we're in trouble. -- Douglas Engelbart

Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. -- Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism

Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

What sin has not been committed in the name of efficiency?

To live content with small means. To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion. To be worthy not respectable, and wealthy not rich. To listen to stars and birds and babes and sages with an open heart. To study hard, think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions. Hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, the unbidden and the unconscious rise up through the common. This is my symphony. -- William Henry Channing

The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. -- Quintus Ennius

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -- Robert A. Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please -- this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time -- and squawk for more! So learn to say No - and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.) -- Robert A. Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus

Omit needless words. -- William Strunk (1869-1946), The Elements of Style

One must be silent, if one can't give any help. -- Kafka

What people have been reduced to are mere 3-D representations of their own data. -- Arthur Miller

In order to know things well, we must know them in detail, and detail, being infinite, makes all our knowledge superficial and incomplete. -- François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld

Life is difficult because it is non-linear.

No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.

In other words, repeated exposure through audiovisual media to the short forms can result in an addiction to their brevity and speed - and can remove the pleasure and gusto of engaging in the complex forms, which require time and mingling with the text and its cultural background. -- Umberto Eco, Diminutive, but perfectly formed I would have written a shorter letter but didn't have time. -- Blaise Pascal

Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to be added, but when there is nothing more to be taken away. -- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. -- C.E. Ayres (or Saki?)