Linux Cookie: 211 of 1140 |
Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between
the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship.
"Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report. "A barrier of water
vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library!
A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not
have..."
It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes.
- Startide Rising, by David Brin
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Linux Cookie: 212 of 1140 |
Harrison's Postulate:
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
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Linux Cookie: 213 of 1140 |
Mr. Cole's Axiom:
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant;
the population is growing.
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Linux Cookie: 214 of 1140 |
Felson's Law:
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from
many is research.
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Linux Cookie: 215 of 1140 |
...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an
inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have
ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I
haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it.
There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between
prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have
looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice
is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious
mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you
may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you
have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.
- Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46
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Linux Cookie: 216 of 1140 |
If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better,
and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can
convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health.
- Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble
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Linux Cookie: 217 of 1140 |
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde
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Linux Cookie: 218 of 1140 |
Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once.
-- Karl Lehenbauer
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Linux Cookie: 219 of 1140 |
Sometimes, too long is too long.
- Joe Crowe
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Linux Cookie: 220 of 1140 |
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one,
an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
- Edmund Burke
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