File Quotes
More File Quotes
A physicist must be able to saw with a file and to file with a saw.
— advising Heinrich Kayser to favor experimental physics above mathematical training, as quoted in the biographical memoir of Heinrich Kayser. Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society. Royal Society. 1955. p. 135.
We need to simplify our tax code. We need to make sure that it’s not too cumbersome for people to be able to comply with. And that they don’t end up spending more money trying to file their taxes than they do actually paying in.
kristi noem— Woster, Kevin. Noem ad: poignant or political? Rapid City Journal. May 9, 2010.
The Psychology of Delay. Some of the causes of delay in coming to economic decisions in our country seem to lie in the psychological realm. There is such a thing as the psychology of power which motivates people: power of control and patronage, power to delay an application, power to hold up a file, power to keep people waiting in an ante-room, all of which are consciously or subconsciously treated as symbols of prestige and hallmarks of importance.
j. r. d. tata— To The Central Advisory Council of Industries, New Delhi, January 3, 1969.
As of rioting, the old Roman way of dealing with that is always the right one; flog the rank and file, and fling the ring-leaders from the Tarpeian rock.
thomas arnold— Quoted by Matthew Arnold, Cornhill Magazine, August 1868
I was going to do a book about the first prearranged Karpov-Kasparov match, '84-'85. But the God-damn Jews have stolen my entire file on that.
bobby fischer— Radio Interview, January 27 2002 [24]
Is the Labour Party to remain a democratic party in which the right of free criticism and free debate is not merely tolerated but encouraged? Or are the rank and file of the party to be bludgeoned or cowed into an uncritical subservience towards the leadership?
michael foot— Tribune, 1954.
You are a very interesting case, General. Do you know what fat file of evidence we have against you here?
heinrich müller— To General Walter Dornberger, 1944. Quoted in "Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny" - by Edward Crankshaw
Sun is one of many US companies that file software patents regularly, the reason we file software patents regularly is the same reason that Americans buy guns. Americans buy guns, because Americans buy guns. American corporations file software patents because American corporations file software patents."
simon phipps— Keynote Speech at FOSDEM 2007: Liberating Java
When you fly a balloon you don’t file a flight plan; you go where the wind goes. You feel like part of the air. You almost feel like part of eternity, and you just float along.
jeannette piccard— Quoted in Sorenson, Paul (1998-1999). Looking Back.... AEM Update, University of Minnesota Institute of Technology.
A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack.
andrew s. tanenbaum— In a Usenet message to Linus Torvalds, 30 Jan 1992
There is room in the halls of pleasureFor a long and lordly train,But one by one we must all file onThrough the narrow aisles of pain.
ella wheeler wilcox— Solitude
You cannot choose your battlefield, God does that for you; But you can plant a standard Where a standard never flew. QOTD 2007·11·01 Sound file
nathalia crane— "The Colors" (These lines have sometimes been misattributed to the author Stephen Crane).
'Why can't we be friends now?' said the other, holding him affectionately. 'It's what I want. It's what you want.' But the horses didn't want it they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices 'No, not yet,' and the sky said 'No, not there.'
e. m. forster— Ch. 37 (A Passage to India (1924))
Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in single file, instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger.
Kenneth Grahame— Ch. 6, "Mr. Toad"
Mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward.
— Holmes' critique of "single file" thinking foreshadows Fyodor Dostoevsky's attack, in an essay of October 1876, on what he called "the straight-line approach". See Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary, Volume 1: 1873–1876 (Northwestern University Press, 1997), pp. 641–57, 721–29.
The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.
bel kaufman— Part I, ch. 2 (Bea Schachter)
As so often, the ordinary rank and file of the electorate have seen a truth, an important fact, which has escaped so many more clever people the underlying value of that which is traditional, that which is prescriptive.
enoch powell— Speech to the House of Commons regarding proposals for reforming the House of Lords on 19 November 1968 (Hansard, 773:1168), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), p. 497.
I personally believe open source is most important is in the operating system and in file formats. As long as those two things remain open source you can never have a monopoly. No company can dominate by any means except a superior product, and that puts the choice back into the hands of the public.
michael simms— Quoted in "Linux Game Publishing - it's possible" M station (2003)
"Ha ha noob, you are pwned by troll. I have encrypt all your file. Leave 1000 GP at below coordinates and I give you key"
neal stephenson— The REAMDE virus’ accompanying message, Day 1
I think Leopard is a much better system [than Windows Vista] … but OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.
linus torvalds— "linux.conf.au conference". 2008-02-05.
Just don't create a file called -rf.
larry wall— Usenet article <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> (1991)
And we can always supply them with a program that makes identical files into links to a single file.
larry wall— Usenet article <199709292012.NAA09616@wall.org> (1997)
A Hindu is instructed to walk the last phase of his stay in single file; he might look within, meditate , and search for the divine . It is only in the solitude aloneness ( sanya ) that an individual might experience Brahman , the immanent , transcendental God . Thus, established in the higher levels of divine consciousness , sanyasin is beyond both adoration and censure .
— Hiro G. Badlani, in "Hinduism: Path of the Ancient Wisdom (30 September 2008)", pp.41-43
They shall knaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam whar the lion roareth and the Wang Doodle mourneth for its first born ah!
— Burlesque Sermon in Cole's Fun Doctor. Attributed to Andrew Harper as a travesty on sermons preached by itinerant preachers on the Mississippi. Found in Speaker's Garland, Volume VIII. Also claimed for Dow—Patent Sermons.
In addition to patients without insurance, hospitals also charged international visitors and patients with health plans through insurers that haven't negotiated hospital discounts approximately two and a half times the price offered to health insurers with discounts, the report estimates. These inflated bills base their prices on a hospital's chargemaster file, an undiscounted master list of the prices hospitals set for services.
— Medicine & Health staff (May 14, 2007). "Picking on the poor: hospitals charge uninsured patients more: self-pay patients pay 3 times more than Medicare-allowable costs". Medicine & Health 61 (19).
I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "Science Fiction" ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
kurt vonnegut— Kurt Vonnegut, The New York Times Book Review, 5 September 1965; reprinted in Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (1974)
I personally believe open source is most important is in the operating system and in file formats. As long as those two things remain open source you can never have a monopoly. No company can dominate by any means except a superior product, and that puts the choice back into the hands of the public.
— Michael Simms, M station (2003). Linux Game Publishing - it's possible. Retrieved on 2010-07-20.
