"If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation."

“It is impossible to see the angel unless you first have a notion of it.”

“Reason cannot desire for man any condition other than that in which not only every individual enjoys the most absolute, unbounded freedom to develop himself out of himself, in true individuality, but in which physical nature, as well, need receive no other shaping by human hands than that which is given to her voluntarily by each individual, according to the measure of his wants and his inclinations, restricted only by the limits of his energy and his rights.”

“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.”

Source : Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.130, Crossing Press

“Some guys run their house. Some guys run around their house. I'm a guy who runs my house!”

“There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.”

“We're going to think big, we're going to bet big.”

Source : "Ballmer Kept It Super Weird At Goodbye Meeting With Microsoft". Goodbye speech, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 26, 2013.

“But in order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The seas, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death--these are things that unite us all. We resemble one another in what we see together, in what we suffer together. Dreams change from individual, but the reality of the world is common to us all. Striving towards realism is therefore legitimate, for it is basically related to the artistic adventure.”

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

Source : "The Wizardry Compiled". Book by Rick Cook, 1989.