Richard Stallman Quotes

81 quotes in 1119 categories

• The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once…
• I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would…
• Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.
• I'm always happy when I'm protesting.
• I did write some code in Java once, but that was the island in Indonesia.
• Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.
• Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.
• People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the world.
• Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is a bit like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Alliance.
• No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult, not even the Church of Emacs.
• Would a dating service on the net be 'frowned upon' . . . ? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that…
• If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to…
• Today many people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons. That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we…
• Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking.
• Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.
• For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at…
• You can use any editor you want, but remember that vi vi vi is the text editor of the beast.
• I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what…
• All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.
• Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

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