Blog Posts
Citizen of the World
Never, when asked one’s country, answer, ‘I am Athenian or Corinthian,’ but ‘I am a citizen of the world.’
— Epictetus, Discourses, Book I:IX
Dijkstra: On Elegance
How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity — in short: what mathematicians call “elegance”— are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
Dijkstra: Quick and Dirty
I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself “Dijkstra would not have liked this”, well, that would be enough immortality for me.
Equal Affection
If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.
— W. H. Auden, The More Loving One
Holding the Universe Together
She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.
— J. D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew
Philosophy
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
Poe and La Rochefoucauld
The true genius shudders at incompleteness—and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
— Edgar Allan Poe
Solemnity is a mystery of the body, which serves to hide the defects of the mind.
— La Rochefoucauld
Probability == 0
I would think of it as a violation of my professional ethics to describe the probability of something as 0.
— Yaron Minsky
Rorty: On Solidarity
Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people.
— Richard Rorty
The Old World Is Dying
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.
— Antonio Gramsci