There were many at Bell Labs and MIT who compared Shannon's insight to Einstein's. Others found that comparison unfair - unfair to Shannon.

Handel paralysed music in England for generations and they have not yet quite got over him.

If you tie Handel's hands by debarring him from the rendering of human emotion, and if you set Bach's free by giving him no human emotion to render — if, in fact, you rob Handel of his opportunities and Bach of his difficulties — the two men can fight after a fashion, but Handel will even so come off victorious.

And so these men of Hindustan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right And all were in the wrong. <p> So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!

Writers differ with respect to the apophthegms of the Seven Sages, attributing the same one to various authors.

They accuse me — Me — the present writer of
The present poem — of — I know not what, — A tendency to under-rate and scoff
At human power and virtue, and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.
Good God! I wonder what they would be at!
I say no more than has been said in Dante's
Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault;
By Fenelon, by Luther and by Plato;
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so — For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,
Nor even Diogenes. — We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.

On the one hand they regarded him as a man of wit and sense, and on the other he seemed to them a maundering blockhead, and they could not make up their minds whereabouts between wisdom and folly they ought to place him.

I leave it to you to compare this Christian hero <nowiki>[</nowiki>Paul] with some of the 'freethinkers' of our own day, who, 'more intolerant than the intolerance they deprecate,' flaunt in public their cheap and trumpery theories of the great Apostle and the Master whom he served.

Every Englishman believes that Handel now occupies an important position in heaven. If so, le bon Dieu must feel toward him very much as Louis Treize felt toward Richelieu.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.

Theological disputations are a favorite hobby of mine, but even the most eloquent and learned disputant finds his abilities wane before the persuasiveness of the thumb-lock, the nose-pincers and the molten boot.

It is notorious that men of science differ among themselves, that they accuse each other of being wrong, and that their discussions are quite as acrimonious as those of their philosophical or linguistic colleagues.

Contemplative and bookish men must of necessity be more quarrelsome than others, because neither do they contend about matters of fact nor can they determine their controversies by any certain witnesses or judges.

And some who were not elegant said: “He is too elegant to be honest.” And some who were not tall said: “He is too tall to be trusted,” and some who were intuitive shuddered, though they were not sure why.