Quotes

Sometimes the true wonder, the true value of the internet just comes out and hits you. I was Googling to find the precise wording of the Thomas J Watson (Ch of IBM) quote I used above. Found it on Wikipedia (together with a lot of evidence that Watson never ever used the words in his most famous quote)

But I also landed on http://www.brainyquote.com/ . What a fantastic site! It lists another 20 of Thomas J Watson’s quotes. I really do commend you to read them as every one is a winner.

My favourite, because it is so true in all my experience of meeting both “big people” and even more who think they are ‘Big’, is:

"Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous - not just to some people in some circumstances - but to everyone all the time".

I’d like to appear in a Book of Quotations someday. Above my desk is a copy of the very first personal profile of Holway to appear in Computing back in 1985. Its headline is:

“If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make a decision”.

Which I still wouldn’t mind on my tombstone. It's similar to another Thomas J Watson quote:

“The way to succeed is to double your error rate”.

If you do nothing else today, read Thomas J Watson’s quotes!