We have come through a strange cycle in programming, starting with the creation of programming itself as a human activity. Executives with the tiniest smattering of knowledge assume that anyone can write a program, and only now are programmers beginning to win their battle for recognition as true professionals. Not just anyone, with any background, or any training, can do a fine job of programming. Programmers know this, but then why is it that they think that anyone picked off the street can do documentation? One has only to spend an hour looking at papers written by graduate students to realize the extent to which the ability to communicate is not universally held. And so, when we speak about computer program documentation, we are not speaking about the psychology of computer programming at all - except insofar as programmers have the illusion that anyone can do a good job of documentation, provided he is not smart enough to be a programmer.
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As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past. (On Americans who avoided conscription during the Vietnam War, to Veterans of Foreign Wars)
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We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.
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An American tragedy in which we all have played a part. (On Watergate, announcing pardon of former President Richard M Nixon)
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The Miss America contest is the most perfectly rendered theater in our culture, for it so perfectly captures what we yearn for: a low-class ritual, a polished restatement of vulgarity, that wants to open the door to high-class respectability by way of plain middle-class anxiety and ambition.
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The trial court has already said it's a good-faith mistake. I think the Court of Appeals is not going to get involved in this. I think everybody realizes Harris County got hoodwinked as much as the defense did with Park Dietz's testimony.
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Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.
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My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. (On succeeding Richard M Nixon as president)
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All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future.
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My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
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The political lesson of Watergate is this Never again must America allow an arrogant, elite guard of political adolescents to by-pass the regular party organization and dictate the terms of a national election.
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The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.
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I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and the chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which, to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned.
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I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage. I want progress, and I want problemsolving which requires my best efforts and also your best efforts. I have no need to learn how Congress speaks for the people. As President, I intend to listen. But I also intend to listen to the people themselvesall the peopleas I promised last Friday. I want to be sure that we are all tuned in to the real voice of America.
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Humor heals the heckler.
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Obviously, it's a great privilege and pleasure to be here at the Yale Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation. And I defy anyone to say that a...
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I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers.
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My telephone calls and meetings and decisions were now parts of a prescribed ritual aimed at making peace with the past his calls, his meetings and his decisions were already the ones that would shape America's future. (On transfer of power to Gerald R Ford)
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The American wage earner and the American housewife are a lot better economists than most economists care to admit. They know that a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
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It's the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It's a quality to be proud of. But it's a quality that many people seem to have neglected.
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In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the people. If we dont make government responsive to the people, we dont make it believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning democracy.
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America now is stumbling through the darkness of hatred and divisiveness. Our values, our principles, and our determination to succeed as a free and democratic people will give us a torch to light the way. And we will survive and become the strongernot only because of a patriotism that stands for love of country, but a patriotism that stands for love of people.
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Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.
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I can't believe in the God of my Fathers. If there is one Mind which understands all things, it will comprehend me in my unbelief. I don't know whose hand hung Hesperus in the sky, and fixed the Dog Star, and scattered the shining dust of Heaven, and fired the sun, and froze the darkness between the lonely worlds that spin in space.
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A coalition of groups ... is waging a massive propaganda campaign against the president of the United States. ... an all-out attack. Their aim is total victory for themselves and total defeat for him. (On Watergate crisis)
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Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men.
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I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government but civilization itself.
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Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion?... Let us show that we can temper tog...
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I have had a lot of adversaries in my political life, but no enemies that I can remember.
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Intellectuals are people who believe that ideas are of more importance than values. That is to say, their own ideas and other people's values.
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