Hal Abelson Quotes
Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
Quotes to Explore
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Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why.
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In many parts of the world, more people have access to a mobile device than to a toilet or running water.
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I don't believe in God personally but I have great respect for those people who do and different people have different religious views in this country.
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Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world, it's the only thing that ever has.
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The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.
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Eliza Factor's first novel, 'The Mercury Fountain,' explores what happens when a life driven by ideology confronts implacable truths of science and human nature. It also shows how leaders can inflict damage by neglecting the real needs of real people.
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Perhaps gaining power doesn't cause people to act like takers. It simply creates the opportunity for people who think like takers to express themselves.
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People only see what they are prepared to see.
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Capitalism offers you freedom, but far from giving people freedom, it enslaves them.
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I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.
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I'm fascinated by the capacity to be able to do harm. I struggle every day with the ability of people to do evil. Not just the big things - the petty things that people do in order to make someone feel small, when it's so easy to do, and it hurts so much.
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After all, life hasn't much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.
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The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
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A lot of people put pressure on me, but I don't think I feel that type of pressure. It is more of a good thing that people are trying to do that.
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Those few people who do respond to the dire conditions of the future - journalists, environmentalists, behavioral scientists - tend not to be powerful.
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The government of Iran has no problem with the American nation.
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I have enjoyed every call. The ones involving direct contact with people have been most rewarding.
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The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way, but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work.
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Promise keeping is a powerful means of grace in a time when people hardly depend on each other to remember and live by their word.
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I didn't cost the Series. I cost a game in the regular season.
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I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.
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How beautiful are dreams! In dreams the dead may live, even the long dead and the very silent.
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Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
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Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
