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A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

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If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music... and of aviation.

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The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another.

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...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on Heaven is to create hell. In their desperate longing to transcend the disorderliness, friction, and unpredictability that pesters life; in their desire for a fresh start in a tidy habitat, germ-free and secured by angels, religious multitudes are gambling the only life they may ever have on a dark horse in a race that has no finish line."

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If there is, in fact, a Heaven and a Hell, all we know for sure is that Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix...

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A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.

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If debugging is the art of removing bugs, then programming must be the art of inserting them.

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The primary purpose of the Data statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable Pi can be given that value with a Data statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.

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The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can be economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.

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