Quotes About Adaptation

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

Each one of a pair of lovers fashions himself to meet the other's requirements—endeavors by a continual effort to resemble that idol of himself which he beholds in the other's heart.... Whoever really loves abandons all sincerity.

L'homme se dégagera peu à peu de ce qui le protégeait naguère; de ce qui désormais l'asservit.

Veo peor y se me cansan más deprisa los ojos. También oigo peor. Me digo que sin duda no es malo que se aleje así de nosotros, progresivamente, una tierra que de lo contrario nos costaría demasiado dejar; que nos costaría demasiado dejar de golpe. Lo admirable sería, al mismo tiempo, acercarse progresivamente a… otra cosa.

The things that soonest appear out of date are those that at first strike us as most modern.

Control what you can control.

apers, a Xik, altered by their own surgeons to

What shape is water?' " 'Water doesn't have any shape!' I said, laughing. 'It takes the shape you give

What shape is water?' " 'Water doesn't have any shape!' I said, laughing. 'It takes the shape you give it.

One day I saw that my friend had put a bowl, a cup, a teapot, and a square milk carton on the edge of a well, had filled them all with water, and was looking at them attentively. " 'What are you doing?' I asked him. And he answered me with a question in turn. " 'What shape is water?' " 'Water doesn't have any shape!' I said, laughing. 'It takes the shape you give it.

change requires destruction, whether or not you value the destroyed.

The power of natural selection is beyond dispute, but this power has limits. Natural selection can preserve innovations, but it cannot create them. And calling the change that creates them random is just another way of admitting our ignorance about it.

Innovation is combinatorial. It combines old things to make the new.

This is one of nature's lessons for innovable technologies: If we want to open nature's black box of innovation, Ockham's razor is much too dull. Like oil and water, simplicity and innovability don't mix.

North Korea is not irrational, and nothing shows this better than its continuing survival against all odds. North Korea is essentially a political living fossil, a relic of an era long gone.

she studies to be equal in a world that is no longer surprised at anything

the racetrack results go through phases when certain methods succeed and certain methods fail.

Great software today is often preferable to perfect software tomorrow. If you give your users something to play with early, their feedback will often lead you to a better eventual solution

Rather than construction, software is more like gardening—it is more organic than concrete. You plant many things in a garden according to an initial plan and conditions. Some thrive, others are destined to end up as compost.

Don't rely on the properties of things you can't control.

Tracer bullets show what you're hitting. This may not always be the target. You then adjust your aim until they're on target. That's the point. It's the same with tracer code.

Always take small, deliberate steps, checking for feedback and adjusting before proceeding

Distrust environments where requirements are gathered, specifications are written, and then coding starts, all in isolation.

All software becomes legacy as soon as it's written.