Larry Wall Quotes

Analogy cannot serve as proof.

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

XML is not a language in the sense of a programming language any more than sketches on a napkin are a language.

Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument.

If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.

[Emacs] is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful.

Programming languages are like girlfriends: The new one is better because *you* are better.

In my world, everything is possible and everything is relative.

You can't compare any job or any friendship or anything to another. I think if you do, it's kind of a recipe for disaster.

What is called "objectivity," scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation) imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, firmly established, or rooted in a network of conventions ... and yet which still remains a context.

A simile is just a metaphor with the scaffolding still up.

The circumstances of others seem good to us, while ours seem good to others.

In the vast majority of businesses, there is simply no such thing as “the best.”

each of us only feels the torn lining of his own coat and sees the wholeness of the other person's.

My father could argue two sides of a Möbius Strip.

I do not believe in objects. I believe only in their relationships.

Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong.

Now all orators effect their demonstrative proofs by allegation either of enthymems or examples, and, besides these, in no other way whatever.

It was never the right time or it was always the right time, depending on how you looked at it.

Logic is the art of convincing us some truth.

It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.

Science demands objective factual evidence - proof; spiritual experience is subjective and leads to faith.

You can "prove" anything on the verbal level, just be accepting the necessary axioms at the beginning.

Moral: It all depends.

...for since there is no real 'way' to sartori, the way you are following makes very little difference.