C.S. Friedman Quotes

It's probably fair to say that the ratio of time our Connector developers spend in the debugger versus the Emacs buffer is higher than with most software.

Big ideas start as weird ideas.

Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state.

Most apparent conspiracies result from consistent local self-interest with no need for global coordination.

Curiosity about the world and questioning of the status quo to open minds to alternative visions of the future are essential leadership skills. And they can be learned.

The worst thing you can do, despite the innumerable obstacles we confront, is to not try.

The principles that apply to engagement for employees are the same as those that apply to supervisors.

The act of envisioning is mainly useful as a means for identifying what matters most to you now.

There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research.

I'm from Minnesota. I'm optimistic. I mean, that's just who I am.

It is hard to partner with someone when you become so radioactive no one wants to stand next to you.

This is the potential start of something...awareness

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.

I think my most favorite subject was Lena Horne, because she embodies soul and grace and elegance and 'street'. She embodies everything. And beauty — great beauty.

The Chinese have a long history of slaughtering each other without bothering their neighbors.

Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case.

I'm not a journalist. So I didn't down and let Assad charm me. I didn't walk away and say "my god he's got an Apple computer and he really likes Beyonce so he must be a liberal."

The reality is the stakes are very high. If your industry is targeted or your company is sued in a class action, your legal costs will soar.

I don't believe in carrying a weapon. If somebody wants to shoot me, he'll have to bring his own gun.

This system is really broken. No Child Left Behind has really failed and the only way to solve education is to leave one governor behind.

Now I have a cat. Well, that's not quite accurate. A cat and I have each other.

I don't think I have even achieved fame. Of course, Hemingway says that fame is death's little sister.

If Jesus Christ had run as an independent, Rick Perry would have beat him.

I don't feel bad about losing.

Like most of us, I determined that I'd rather be a large part of the problem than a small part of the solution.

The teachers are getting screwed, blued, and tattooed by the system.

Cuban cigars is a big expense because I do smoke a lot of them, eight to 12 a day, so that would be almost as bad as a cocaine habit, a hundred bucks a day.

I'd felt that a man without a woman was like a neck without a pain.

No matter where you go, you always see yourself in the rearview mirror.

There's no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan was by far the greatest. Because he had real principles and he stuck by them. He made clear what he was going to do, and he did it. He didn't back down.

Anybody who was easily converted was not worth converting.

Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society.

I am a limited-government libertarian.

Everywhere, and at all times, economic progress has meant far more to the poor than to the rich.

In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.

Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasible.

The euro is going to be a big source of problems, not a source of help.

You mustn't judge a politician by talk. You have to judge them by performance.

In the US, the problem is primary and secondary education. We've had such an increase in inequality because a quarter of American kids don't finish high school!

Undoubtedly Internet has reduced the possibilities of taxation. Why should I buy something here if I can buy it from a company in Japan or England or Brazil with a lower tax?

When they so-called 'target the interest rate', what they're doing is controlling the money supply via the interest rate. The interest rate is only an intermediary instrument.

Economists may not know how to run the economy, but they know how to create shortages or gluts simply by regulating prices below the market, or artificially supporting them from above.

The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years.

If you're searching for "work/life balance" you'll always be disappointed because "balance" connotes a zero-sum equation.

We have to be the best global citizens we can be.

In the hyperconnected world, there is only “good” “better” and “best.

Our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of taxpayers' money into the mail-order catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay.

Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards.

I sold my soul for knowledge of the future, only to have that very pact render me forever ignorant (Gerald Tarrant).

I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government.