Hardware, Software and Firmware

My favorite one from the Tao of Programming.

Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said:

“You are yin and I am yang. If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast amounts of money.”

And so they 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 seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time.”

Hardware and Software, ashamed, returned to their homes.

— The Tao of Programming, Geoffrey James, 1987