(printed by fortune in one of my terminal windows today)
Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: “You are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money.” And so the pair set forth together, thinking to conquer the world.
Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: “The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seeks fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time.”
Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
— Geoffrey James, The Tao of Programming