Citations:the cake is a lie

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English citations of the cake is a lie

Proverb: "the end you are pursuing is unattainable or misguided; the reward you have been promised is false"

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  • 2009 October 6, Linus Torvalds, “Re: Linux 2.6.32-rc3”, in linux.kernel[1] (Usenet):
    The cake is a lie. In between kernel versions, you can't rely on the Makefile. You should teach yourself (and others) THAT, rather than trying to teach people to believe the lie even more.
  • 2010 December 15 (last accessed), Griff McConal, “The Cake Is a Lie”, in Know Your Meme[2]:
    People were using the phrase, “The cake is a lie”, on forums as an idiom meaning, “You are chasing after an empty, unattainable goal.” People all over the internet were saying “the cake is a lie” without even knowing what Portal was.
  • 2011, Nick Martin, "A Hit Sitcom In Just Five Easy Steps!", Buzz Weekly, 15 December 2011, page 6:
    The jokes are cake, and the cake is a lie — fan-service tricking nerds into watching a show designed for adults who vote Republican (Middle America!).
  • 2012 February 13, Chom Noamsky [username], “Re: How to NOT win an Argument”, in can.politics[3] (Usenet):
    There is no ideological panacea, the cake is a lie. Your belief that complex multi-faceted problems can have simple ideological solutions created by a man is naive and quaint in the extreme.
  • 2012 28 February, Allison Pang, A Sliver of Shadow, Pocket Books (2012), →ISBN, page 241:
    "The cake is a lie," I intoned gravely.
    She stuck her tongue out at me. "It always is. But we need to be a bit more alert to what's going on this time." Her mouth curved into a wry smile. "There's science to do."
  • 2012, James Margeson, "The quiet assault on public education", The Sphinx (University of Liverpool), March 2012, page 9:
    The assumption that a degree will vastly improve future earnings is increasingly misleading. By their very nature high paid jobs are exclusive and limited in number. "The cake is a lie."
  • 2012 12 November, J. L. Hilton, Stellarnet Prince, Carina Press (2012), →ISBN, page 320:
    “One shitty leader doesn't mean the cake is a lie. One man's decisions don't invalidate everything else—the ideals, the history, the words etched in marble and the sacrifices of all the people who make the United States a just and safe place to live.”
  • 2018, Jack Townsend, Tales from the Gas Station: Volume Two, page 5:
    Life is suffering. Free will is an illusion. The cake is a lie.
  • 2019, Hsueh M. Qu, Hume's Epistemological Evolution, page 111:
    However, Hume thinks that the cake is a lie: such a system retains the difficulties of the vulgar theory, and also carries with it some unique problems.
  • 2020, Heather Vescent & Nick Selby, Cyber Attack Survival Manual: From Identity Theft to The Digital Apocalypse, page 69:
    Start out by talking about how criminals attract us with sexy pictures, promises of free games or movies, get-rich-quick schemes, and more. The more a link begs you to click on it, the less likely it is that it will deliver on its promise. So, point one, the cake is a lie.