d knuth quotes

In the beginning, everything was void, and J.H.W.H.Conway
began to create numbers. Conway said, "Let there be two
rules which bring forth all numbers large and small. This
shall be the first rule: Every number corresponds to two
sets of previously created numbers, such that no member of
the left set is greater than or equal to any member of the
right set. And the second rule shall be this: One number is
less than or equal to another number if and only if no member
of the first number's left set is greater than or equal to the
second number, and no member of the second number 's right
set is less than or equal to the first number." And Conway
examined these two rules he had made, and behold! they were
very good.
And the first number was created from the void left set and the
void right set. Conway called this number "zero", and said that
it shall be a sign to separate positive numbers from negative
numbers. Conway proved that zero was less than or equal to
zero, and he saw that it was good. And the evening and the
morning were the day of zero. On the next day, two more numbers
were created, one with zero as its left set and one with zero as its
right set. And Conway called the former number "one", and
the latter he called "minus one". And he proved that minus one
is less than but not equal to zero and zero is less than but
not equal to one. And the evening...
-- D. Knuth, Surreal numbers, 1979