The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts.
--
"Computer Recreations: Of Worms, Viruses and Core War" by A. K. Dewdney in Scientific American, March 1989, pp 110.Gene Spafford
» Gene Spafford - all quotes »
Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise certain persons, though they be themselves evil. But to the Cynic conscience gives this power—not arms and guards. (119)
Epictetus
The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.
Henry Kissinger
The love of humanity is a pathological state of a sexual origin which often appears at the age of puberty in nervous and clever people. The excess of phosphorus in the system must get out somewhere. As for hatred of a tyrant, that is a more human sentiment which has full play in time of war, when force and the mob are one. Emperors must be mad fools to decide on declaring wars which substitute an armed nation for their Praetorian Guards. That idiocy accomplished, despotism of course produces revolution until terrorism leads to the inevitable reaction.
Andre Maurois
The original context is that a husband might lock his wife in the house to prevent her adulteries, but she is cunning and will start with the guards; hence, who guards the guards? The phrase has come to be applied broadly to people or organisations acting against dishonesty or corruption, esp. in public life. See Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? at Wikipedia.
Juvenal
"I wouldn't if I were you, Noël; they count them before they put them out." Murmured to the gay writer Sir Noël Coward at a gala. While she mounted a staircase lined with Guards, she noticed Coward's eyes flicker momentarily over the soldiers.
the Queen Mother Elizabeth
Spafford, Gene
Spalding, John Lancaster
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z