Somerset Maugham Quotes

• Introduction
• Somerset Maugham on love and marriage
• Memorable quotes
• Other interesting quotes
• Recommended Links

Introduction

William Somerset Maugham ( 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer who managed to live a very long life. Only first 60 years of which he was productive. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.

After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become a lawyer like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a doctor. The first run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine and became professional writer.

The medical student who turned into  novelist was also like Oscal wilde before him a fashionable playwright. He wrote several now forgotten comedies, which were popuper at a time, starting from Lady Frederick in 1907 to The Circle and Our Betters in 1921 and 1923.

He is one of very few (and probably the most talented) English novelists closely connected to MI5. He used to belong to the circle of Russian émigré in London due to his affair with the daughter of famous Russian anarchist Duke Kropotkin. During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service, for which he worked in Switzerland. Later he was send by MI5 on clandestine mission  to Russia (so secret, that even English Ambassador to Russia was not informed about it) in Russia and arrived just before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Maugham was given the impossible task to squelch the Bolshivic revolution with 56,000 pounds given to him by the government of Lloyd George and he fictionalizes this in the story "Mr. Harrington's Washington."  He was lucky to be able to leave the country before Bolsheviks caught him and put against the wall  (  Anglo-American Agent in Revolutionary Russia )

  (1874-1966) WAS CHIEF AGENT IN RUSSIA for the British and American secret services during the crucial few weeks which preceded the Bolshevik coup of 1917. Yet the voluminous literature concerning him has been almost exclusively devoted to his fiction and personality, and mainly confined to his French and English interests. Historians have left the field to literary critics, and they in turn have paid little attention to the political side of Maugham. Primarily interested in the author’s plays, novels, and stories, students of literature have never examined Maugham’s intimation that his sojourn in revolutionary Petrograd was both reluctant and pointless. R. L. Calder echoed the sentiments of his fellow literary critics in characterizing his subject as a habitue of the Cafe Royal who had gone to war, and in maintaining that his mission did not succeed, of course.1 This essay qualifies and explains Maugham’s reputation for failure, and emphasizes the historical significance of his undercover activities.2

The distortions of Maugham’s memory help to explain his reputation for failure in Russia. Ten years elapsed before he wrote about 1917, and then he cast himself in the fictional role of Ashenden.

He is generally recognized as one of the fathers of modern spy fiction. The precursor and inspiration to Greene, Ian Flemming, Eric Ambler, and LeCarre.  His novel Ashenden The British Agent  (1928), is acknowledged as the work that broke spy fiction out of the mould established by romantic works of the pre-1914 era. It is very far away from the intricately woven page-turners featuring brainy CIA or MI5 types bedding super-beautiful Russian women left and right that we tend to think of as being sp novels today. Ashenden, whose wartime experiences mirror Maugham's, is no James Bond; rather he is a small cog in a larger machine, acting as a facilitator whilst often being unaware of the wider consequences.  Some years ago Ashenden was serialized on the BBC. As Michael Dirda (the reviewer for the Washington Post) noted:

"Ashenden" is readable, convincing, and (despite its WWI setting) relevant to the events of today. The secret and desperate world of war and espionage will be with us forever it seems; Maugham's themes are timeless and his writing is a model of clarity.

During and after the war, he traveled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels. What is interesting the main hero of those stories often pose as narcoaddict (addicted to opium). He liked to describe the dramas of ordinary people in tragic situations; making use of the exotic background of the Far East with the style influenced by Maupassant.

His stories still stand up as stories, no matter into what medium they are translated. They are frequently slight and some times trivial, but they are never botched

Maugham’s attitude toward life and toward his fellows has not changed over the years. It is that of an aloof, sardonic clinician who expects little from existence, is surprised at nothing, is skeptical of aspirations and amused by the spectacle of the follies of mankind. Often the attitude has degenerated into a formula, and then one is aware of an irritating note of superiority in Maugham, a note of condescension to frailer mortals. In many of the short stories he appears as altogether too knowing, too unsurprised, too worldly. And one becomes aware, too, of something else: what might be called an unduly limited sense of curiosity.

In his views on many human problems and emotions (especially his skepticism about romantic love and monogamous marriage) he somewhat reminds Oscar Wilde.  He was definitely influenced by this author. He definitely saw, and even somewhat amplified in his quotes)  the same problems as Oscar Wilde and first of all the problem "asymmetry" of romantic love and romantic feelings as in two famous Oscar Wilde quotes (some call them cynical view on love, while in reality they are probably pretty realistic):

• A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
• One person loves, the other person lets themselves be loved...

Compare with the following Somerset Maugham quotes:

• There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved, 'Of Human Bondage', 1915 -- This is almost one-to-one rephrasing of famous Oscar Wilde quote.
• There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.  --  The Moon and Sixpence
• I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection.

Somerset Maugham on asymmetry of love and marriage

• There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved, 'Of Human Bondage', 1915 (compare with Oscar Wilde)
• There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.  --  The Moon and Sixpence
• The important thing was to love rather than to be loved, 'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. 
• The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
• A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.
• Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are, The Painted Veil, 1925
• American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers, The Razor's Edge, 1943
• Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.
• Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are, The Painted Veil, 1925
• Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.
• One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her, The Painted Veil, 1925
• Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
• One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
• As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,  The Painted Veil, 1925 
• A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account,  The Moon and Sixpence
• When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable. The Razor's Edge, 1943
• For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not the very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them. -- The Moon and Sixpence
• Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
• "Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.  --  Of Human Bondage
•  As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.   --  The Moon and Sixpence
• When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.   --  The Moon and Sixpence
• Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither, The Painted Veil, 1925
• 'I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor.  --  The Painted Veil
• How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.  --  The Painted Veil
• If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers. -- The Painted Veil
• Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.” -- The Moon and Sixpence

Memorable quotes

• It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
• It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive. -- The Moon and Sixpence
• Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it,  -- The Razor's Edge
• Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.”ge, 1943
• It's a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, but few are chosen,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
• The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. The Circle, 1921
• When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
• The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.
• People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
• The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
• Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
• Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem,  The Moon and Sixpence
• He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it spiritually invigorating,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
• Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
• Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
• There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
• The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
• Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
• There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
• The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
• Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
• You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
• If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.   --  The Painted Veil
• I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. --  Of Human Bondage
• If 50 million people say something foolish, it is still foolish.”
• “There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in Philip's eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months.
  
  'Oh, life,' he cried in his heart, 'Oh life, where is thy sting?”
• I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
• I don't understand anything. Life is so strange. I feel like some one who's lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea. It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I don't want to die, I want to live. I'm beginning to feel a new courage. I feel like one of those old sailors who set sail for undiscovered seas and I think my soul hankers for the unknown.
• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
• There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent

Other interesting quotes

• At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. 
• Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. 
• Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. 
• It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. 
• It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. 
• She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
• There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. 
• Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. 
• We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to,
• Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind,  "Of Human Bondage", 1915
• Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915 
• I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things.  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915 -
• It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915 -
• It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915 -
• Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• When things are at their worst I find something always happens,  'Of Human Bondage', 1915
• People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise,  Of Human Bondage
• I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present,  The Moon and Sixpence
• Life isn't long enough for love and art,  The Moon and Sixpence
• Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem,  The Moon and Sixpence
• Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved,  The Painted Veil, 1925
• A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words? , The Razor's Edge, 1943
• All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• I'm not only my spirit buy my body, and who can decide how much I, my individual self, am conditioned by the accident of my body? Would Byron have been Byron but for his club foot, or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky without his epilepsy? , The Razor's Edge, 1943
• It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy,  The Razor's Edge, 1943
• The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter.
• It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
• Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
• You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.   The Razor's Edge, 1943
• It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
• If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
• You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
• Tolerance is another word for indifference.
• Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
• The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
• If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
• Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
• Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
• Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.
• I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
• Impropriety is the soul of wit.
• We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
• Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
• Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
• It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
• Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
• It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
• The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
• It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
• It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
• The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
• To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
• It was one of the queer things of life that you saw a person every day for months and were so intimate with him that you could not imagine existence without him; then separation came, and everything went on in the same way, and the companion who had seemed essential proved unnecessary.  --  Of Human Bondage
• You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one thing in life -- their pleasure.  --  Of Human Bondage

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Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

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Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March, 12, 2019