Droplets Forming: The Moving Finger

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Moving Finger

Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the poem The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, 1859:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

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Quotes

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas." ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold

"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." ~ Albert Einstein

"We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be taught, he can be killed and forgotten but, 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I've witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I've seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them...but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it...ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love." ~ Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta

" Ideas are somewhat like babies--they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company executives do not say, "This is a damn-fool idea." Instead they ask, "What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?" " ~ Peter Drucker, The Frontiers of Management (1986)