Linus Quotes & Sayings

There are no such men today. We have created a mechanism that makes it practically impossible for a real genius to appear. In my own field the biochemist Fritz Lipmann or the much maligned Linus Pauling were very talented people. But generally, geniuses everywhere seem to have died out by 1914. Today, most are mediocrities blown up by the winds of the time. — Erwin Chargaff

Fairly cheap home computing was what changed my life. — Linus Torvalds

I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room - by far - should be the occasional purring of the cat. — Linus Torvalds

It was obvious-to me at any rate-that the answer was to why an enzyme is able to speed up a chemical reaction by as much as 10 million times. It had to do this by lowering the energy of activation-the energy of forming the activated complex. It could do this by forming strong bonds with the activated complex, but only weak bonds with the reactants or products. — Linus Pauling

Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program. — Linus Torvalds

A lot of people still like Solaris, but I'm in active competition with them, and so I hope they die. — Linus Torvalds

On a purely technical side, I'm really very happy with how Linux gets used in a very wide set of different areas. It's important for development. — Linus Torvalds

A lot of people want to have market share numbers, lots of users, because that's how they view their self worth. For me, one of the most important things for Linux is having a big community that is actively testing new kernels; it's the only way to support the absolute insane amount of different hardware we deal with. — Linus Torvalds

You might get one job for having a famous parent, but you won't get your second unless you're good. — Linus Roache

What I find most interesting is how people really have taken Linux and used it in ways and attributes and motivations that I never felt. — Linus Torvalds

A couple of years ago this guy called Ken Brown wrote a book saying that Linus stole Linux from me It later came out that Microsoft had paid him to do this — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

In trying to understand the Linux phenomenon, then, we have to look not at a single innovator but to a sort of bizarre Trinity : Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Bill Gates. Take away any of these three and Linux would not exist. — Neal Stephenson

Man's great power of thinking, remembering, and communicating are responsible for the evolution of civilization. — Linus Pauling

I've been employed by the University of Helsinki, and they've been perfectly happy to keep me employed and doing Linux. — Linus Torvalds

Developers have the attention spans of slightly moronic woodland creatures. — Linus Torvalds

Like thousands of other boys, I had a little chemical laboratory in our cellar and think that some of our friends thought me a bit crazy. — Linus Pauling

One of the reasons that I really don't mind that people are selling Linux commercially is exactly because it does make me feel good that people use the product. — Linus Torvalds

C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language that C is that actively encourages you to use simple and direct constructs. — Linus Torvalds

During the time that Landsteiner gave me an education in the field of immunology, I discovered that he and I were thinking about the serologic problem in very different ways. He would ask, What do these experiments force us to believe about the nature of the world? I would ask, What is the most. simple and general picture of the world that we can formulate that is not ruled by these experiments? I realized that medical and biological investigators were not attacking their problems the same way that theoretical physicists do, the way I had been in the habit of doing. — Linus Pauling

Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C. — Linus Torvalds

And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies. — Linus Torvalds

In science, the whole system builds on people looking at other people's results and building on top of them. In witchcraft, somebody had a small secret and guarded it - but never allowed others to really understand it and build on it. Traditional software is like witchcraft. In history, witchcraft just died out. The same will happen in software. When problems get serious enough, you can't have one person or one company guarding their secrets. You have to have everybody share in the knowledge. — Linus Torvalds

Jesus walked on water because the sailboat was too slow. — Linus Wilson

My favorite cartoon character, Charlie Brown, displayed an attitude with which many of us can identify. He and Linus were talking about their problems. Linus said, "I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today." Charlie Brown replied, "No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better." What — John C. Maxwell

Helsinki isn't all that bad. It's a very nice city, and it's cold really only in wintertime. — Linus Torvalds

On the internet nobody can hear you being subtle. — Linus Torvalds

Me trying to make a business around Linux would have been a total disaster. — Linus Torvalds

When you've got good writing, you can kind of give up all the research, in a way, and start just following the emotional integrity of the journey of your character. — Linus Roache

It just makes it even harder for people to even approach the (open source) side, when they then end up having to worry about public humiliation. — Linus Torvalds

Once you start thinking more about where you want to be than about making the best product, you're screwed. — Linus Torvalds

If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won. — Linus Torvalds

Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton ... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by ... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations ... What do you think you see, Linus?"
"Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean ... That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor ... And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen ... I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side ... "
"Uh huh ... That's very good ... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?"
"Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind! — Charles M. Schulz

Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time. — Linus Torvalds

There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area, and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach. — Linus Torvalds

You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior. — Linus Torvalds

If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. — Linus Torvalds

I've felt strongly that the advantage of Linux is that it doesn't have a niche or any special market, but that different individuals and companies end up pushing it in the direction they want, and as such you end up with something that is pretty balanced across the board. — Linus Torvalds

Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done. — Linus Torvalds

I am not a visionary. I'm an engineer. I'm happy with the people who are wandering around looking at the stars but I am looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole before I fall in. — Linus Torvalds

When I do programming in my free time and for my own enjoyment, I really want to have a kind of protection: knowing that when I improve a program those improvements will continue to be available to me and others in future versions of the program. — Linus Torvalds

Modern PCs are horrible. ACPI is a complete design disaster in every way. But we're kind of stuck with it. If any Intel people are listening to this and you had anything to do with ACPI, shoot yourself now, before you reproduce. — Linus Torvalds

I don't actually go to that many conferences. I do that a couple of times a year. Normally, I am not recognized; people don't throw their panties at me. I'm a perfectly normal person sitting in my den just doing my job. — Linus Torvalds

The cyberspace earnings I get from Linux come in the format of having a Network of people that know me and trust me, and that I can depend on in return. — Linus Torvalds

In the end, it's your job to own the role, and in the end, you are playing certain aspects of your own self, even. — Linus Roache

When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect - but do not believe him. Never put your trust into anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no matter whether he is a Nobel laureate - may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical - always think for yourself. — Linus Pauling

I spend a lot more time than any person should have to talking with lawyers and thinking about intellectual property issues. — Linus Torvalds

Later that night, feeling restless, I get out of bed, creep into Linus's room, and watch him sleeping in his crib. He's lying on his back, wearing blue feety pajamas, one arm up over his head. I listen to his deep-sleep exhales. Even years past those fragile newborn months, it still gives my maternal ears relief and peace to hear the sounds of my children breathing when they're asleep. His orange nukie is in his mouth, the silky edge of his favorite blanket is touching his cheek, and Bunny is lying limp across his chest. He's surrounded by every kind of baby security paraphernalia imaginable, and yet none of it protected him from what could have happened today. — Lisa Genova

The way to do good basic design isn't actually to be really smart about it, but to try to have a few basic concepts. — Linus Torvalds

I'm simply too content doing what I want to do to really have a very negative attitude towards MicroSoft. They make bad products - so what? I don't need to care, because I happily don't have to use them, and writing my own alternative has been a very gratifying experience in many ways. — Linus Torvalds

I made very sure that I did not get involved with any of the commercial Linux companies, exactly so that I would be neutral and not ever seen as "working for the competition". — Linus Torvalds

For Christmas, 1939, a girl friend gave me a book token which I used to buy Linus Pauling's recently published Nature of the Chemical Bond. His book transformed the chemical flatland of my earlier textbooks into a world of three-dimensional structures. — Max Perutz

The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licensable under v3, but not the kernel in general. And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it. So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code. You think v2 or later is the default. It's not. The _default_ is to not allow conversion. Conversion isn't going to happen. — Linus Torvalds

That's what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. It's a positive feedback cycle. — Linus Torvalds

If the double helix was so important, how come you didn't work on It? Ther husband, Linus Pauling, when the Nobel Prize was awarded to Crick, Watson and Wilkins. — Ava Helen Pauling

Any program is only as good as it is useful. — Linus Torvalds

When it comes to software, I much prefer free software, because I have very seldom seen a program that has worked well enough for my needs, and having sources available can be a life-saver. — Linus Torvalds

I think every person should be able to enjoy life. Try to decide what you most enjoy doing, and then look around to see if there is a job for which you could prepare yourself that would enable you to continue having this sort of joy. — Linus Pauling

The economics of the security world are all horribly, horribly nasty and are largely based on fear, intimidation and blackmail. — Linus Torvalds

Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had. — Linus Torvalds

Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is a bit like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Alliance. — Richard Stallman

I like to think that I've been a good manager. That fact has been very instrumental in making Linux a successful product. — Linus Torvalds

How does he do it? Bob in Charge of All Three Kids is an entirely different show
than Sarah in Charge of All Three Kids. With Bob, they're happily willing to be independent little taskmasters, content to leave him in peace until he comes to them with an offer of a new activity. With me, I have all the magnetism of a favorite rock star without the bodyguards. They're on me. A typical example: Linus is under my feet, whining, begging to be picked up, while Lucy hollers, "Mom, I need help!" from another room, while Charlie asks me forty-seven hundred relentless questions about what happens to trash. — Lisa Genova

I love working in films. — Linus Roache

- Fair enough, dit Linus Brandell. — David Lagercrantz

Dad has always been - and still is - a great influence on me. He has always stood up for spirit, staying true to his beliefs ... and I like to do the same with regard to my own true beliefs, regardless of potential criticism or mockery. — Linus Roache

Often your 'fixes' are actually removing capabilities that you had, because they were 'too confusing to the user'. GNOME seems to be developed by interface Nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'. — Linus Torvalds

I shot a pilot for ABC, which I'm a bit confused about what the actual title is - I heard it was called 'Chosen.' It's directed by Roland Emmerich - the master of disaster himself - and it's his idea and concept for the show that's a supernatural thriller about good and evil set in contemporary modern day New York. — Linus Roache

I've never regretted not making Linux shareware: I really don't like the pay for use binary shareware programs. — Linus Torvalds

I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" - anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least thought about in pretty much any context"). — Linus Torvalds

The nucleic acids, as constituents of living organisms, are comparable In importance to proteins. There is evidence that they are Involved In the processes of cell division and growth, that they participate In the transmission of hereditary characters, and that they are important constituents of viruses. An understanding of the molecular structure of the nucleic acids should be of value In the effort to understand the fundamental phenomena of life. — Linus Pauling

Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software. — Linus Torvalds

Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain. — Linus Torvalds

I see I have made myself a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr. Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting for what I do for my private satisfaction or leave to come out after me. For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or to become a slave to defend it. — Isaac Newton

Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense. — Linus Torvalds

I briefly flirted with some of the new age offerings available in the early '90s and found strength in Buddhism, but ultimately I was looking for something that was not tied to tradition. — Linus Roache

Linus: What's wrong, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: I just got terrible news. The teacher says we're going on a field trip to an art museum; and I have to get an A on my report or I'll fail the whole course. Why do we have to have all this pressure about grades, Linus?
Linus: Well, I think that the purpose of going to school is to get good grades so then you can go on to high school; and the purpose is to study hard so you can get good grades so you can go to college; and the purpose of going to college is so you can get good grades so you can go on to graduate school; and the purpose of that is to work hard and get good grades so we can get a job and be successful so that we can get married and have kids so we can send them to grammar school to get good grades so they can go to high school to get good grades so they can go to college and work hard ...
Charlie Brown: Good grief! — Charles M. Schulz

The way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. — Linus Pauling

In my own field, x-ray crystallography, we used to work out the structure of minerals by various dodges which we never bothered to write down, we just used them. Then Linus Pauling came along to the laboratory, saw what we were doing and wrote out what we now call Pauling's Rules. We had all been using Pauling's Rules for about three or four years before Pauling told us what the rules were. — J. D. Bernal

Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, THEN, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver. — Linus Torvalds

Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
Linus Pauling — Linus Pauling

I really am not angry with Linus. Honest. He's not angry with me either. — Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Today, I will offer free web hosting and developpement helps for
projects under Sourceforge — Linus Torvalds

If you have ever done any security work - and it did not involve the concept of "network of trust" - it wasn't security work, it was - masturbation. I don't know what you were doing. But trust me, it's the only way you can do security, it's the only way you can do development. — Linus Torvalds

Both my parents are actors, in very different ways. — Linus Roache

The McCarthy period came along ... and many of the other scientists who had been working on these same lines gave up. Probably saying "Why should I sacrifice myself? I am a scientist, I am supposed to be working on scientific things, so I don't need to put myself at risk by talking about these possibilities." And I have said that perhaps I'm just stubborn ... I have said "I don't like anybody to tell me what to do or to think, except Mrs. Pauling." — Linus Pauling

LINUS: Where are you going for Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown?
CHARLIE: My father, my mother, Sally, and I are all going to my grandmothers for dinner.
SALLY: Do you want to come too, Linus? We can hold hands under the table.
LINUS: BLECH! — Charles M. Schulz

The problem of an atomic war must not be confused by minor problems such as Communism versus capitalism. An atomic war would kill everyone, left, right, or center. — Linus Pauling

Well from now on, Linus think for yourself ... Don't take any advice from anyone! — Charles M. Schulz

I actually think that I'm a rather optimistic and happy person; it's just that I'm not a very positive person, if you see the difference. — Linus Torvalds

In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people. — Linus Torvalds

There are literally several levels of SCO being wrong. And even if we were to live in that alternate universe where SCO would be right, they'd still be wrong. — Linus Torvalds

Who are you writing to, Linus?"
"This is the time of year to write to the Great Pumpkin. On Halloween Night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys for all the children!"
"You must be crazy! When are you going to stop believing in something that isn't true?"
"When *you* stop believing in that fellow with a red suit and the white beard who goes, 'Ho, ho, ho!'"
"We're obviously separated by denominational differences. — Charles M. Schulz

I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things. — Linus Torvalds

It has been recognized that hydrogen bonds restrain protein molecules to their native configurations, and I believe that as the methods of structural chemistry are further applied to physiological problems it will be found that the significance of the hydrogen bond for physiology is greater than that of any other single structural feature. — Linus Pauling

I am not out to destroy Microsoft, that would be a completely unintended side effect. — Linus Torvalds

If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot
of different places, just write a Unix operating system. — Linus Torvalds

As an actor, when you're actually trying to embody what it would be like to just know that everyone's at your beck and call, it's quite a thing to absorb what that might be like and what that would do. — Linus Roache

Helsinki may not be as cold as you make it out to be, but California is still a lot nicer. I don't remember the last time I couldn't walk around in shorts all day. — Linus Torvalds

When I went to drama school, I thought that everybody would think I was only there because my dad was on TV. — Linus Roache

Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly. — Linus Pauling