391 hits
Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?
Why serial commas are important: "I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand and God."
Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains arouse me.
Lies, damned lies and user documentation.
And God said, "Let there be light" and there was light.
"Hmm, pleasant effect" thought God, and flipped it off and on a few times.
Doubt your beliefs and believe your doubts.
Argue not with Dragons, for thou art crunchy and go well with cheese.
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
The BEST part of waking up? Hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep.
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
Absent, adj: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered.
Language and its absurd conjunctions;
Constellations and crustaceans rhyme.
To err is human. And stupid.
Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.
"Loved by some, accepted by others and misunderstood by most."
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.-- Thomas Jones
Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.
Go not to Usenet for counsel, for it will say both no, and yes, and no, and yes....
"It's gone wrong."
Professor George Eisenkopf, resident nuclear genius at the University of Chicopee Falls, Iowa, and the State Department's leading authority on civilian atomic power, scratched his nose with the plastic coffee-stirrer he'd been given on the plane.
"It isn't working properly," he added, in case there were any laymen present.-- Tom Holt ("Odds and Gods")
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but so would an 80 pound carrot.
It is better to have loved and lost than to have hated and won.
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.-- K (MiB)
"Be virtuous and you will be eccentric."-- Mark Twain
"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."-- Robert A. Heinlein
Mirth prolongeth life and causeth health.
Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time. (A coffee cup)
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.-- Confucius
"Not all moderators and FAQ-compilers eventually become power-mad and insane. Some of them started out that way."
Be good to your friends, or they may develop psychokinetic powers and destroy Tokyo.
Adventure: The land between entertainment and panic.
[The Bible] has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.-- Mark Twain
Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have trained for years and years can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
I've learned that you cannot make someone love you.
All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.
"There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts."
Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world.-- John Burroughs
Primus in orbe Deus fecit timor.
"It was fear that introduced gods into the world."
Given a choice between dancing pigs and security, users will pick dancing pigs every time.
"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I choose to accept."-- Calvin and Hobbes
Accountant - someone who can put two and two together and make a living from it.
Frisbeetarianism: the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
Thinking is not a panacea, but to paraphrase Gandhi, maybe it would be a good idea to try some.-- Jess Anderson
The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.-- Lyndon B Johnson
Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are always bothering us to do something for them.-- Oscar Wilde
You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you are making progress.-- Malcolm X
Practical or mean and sneaky? - getting a permanent heart tatoo on your arm and getting three-day temporary tatoos for the names.
People want stories about things they can relate to: life and death, good and evil.
Stand and fight, you misbegotten spawn of the perverse breeding between a pixie and a squirrel!
"When your world looks kind of mean, and you wish that you weren't there.... Just close your eyes and look beneath, and you can be anywhere...." (Muppet Babies Theme Song)
"Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot."
What goes around usually gets dizzy and falls over.
You will trip and fall over a three-eared cat today
Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."-- Thomas Jefferson
I know Karate, Kung Fu, and 47 other dangerous words.
Nothing true is popular, and nothing popular is true.
A committee is an alley down which good ideas are lead and quietly strangled
Basically, to learn Unix you learn to understand and apply a small set of key ideas and achieve expertise by expanding both the set of ideas and your ability to apply them-- Paul Murphy
"Good old days: Beer foamed and drinking water didn't."
Adolescence, n: The stage between puberty and adultery.
Computer Science without FORTRAN and COBOL is like birthday cake without ketchup and mustard.
The Four Food Groups: Coffee, ice cream, beer and pizza.
Happiness is a warm puppy, stir-fried with scallions and red pepper.-- Ry Schwark
We've built a deep, dark hole for your mind, and you get down in there and stay there no matter what, because if you don't obey, we'll take away everything and you'll be good and sorry, and no complaining either. Shut up! Don't EVER think. We're your mommy and your daddy and your teacher and your preacher, and we love you so much, that's why we're setting your switch to OFF. When you're older, you'll realize what a sacrifice you made for us, er, I mean, we made for you.-- Jess Anderson
"If you think about it, somewhere there's a Logrus master with Amelia Earhart, a whole squadron of P-51's, and a mile-high pile of socks and keys."
Some women get excited about nothing, and then marry him.
Destinesia: The act of entering a room and forgetting why.
"Science has made gods of us before we were even worthy of being men."-- Jean Rostand
So just what are time flies, and why do they like an arrow?
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
Don't you think that with the proper amount of manpower, pliers, ropes, belts and duct tape, you actually COULD lead a horse to water AND make it drink?-- Andy Overman
If practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect, why practice?
Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous?
A: A canary with the super-user password.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.-- Henry David Thoreau
"We are the flaming, exploding, CGI-movie saturated MTV generation after all. If it isn't bright pink and green, naked, on fire and computer animated, I just yawn and walk away." (Someone on Slashdot)
Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her.
They say it's never too late to learn to play the piano, but at 2 am, I really wish my roommate would quit and go to bed.-- Nathan Hansar
Let's get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.-- Robert Benchley
Sometimes you have to bite people hard on the lip before they realize you're not kissing them, so keenly do they yearn for approval.-- Jess Anderson
Write a wise saying, and your name will live forever.-- Anonymous
Lost: gray and white female cat. Answers to electric can opener.
There's a difference between knowing something and realizing it.
"I would rather believe that God did not exist than believe that He was indifferent."-- George Sand
"It stands for 'Sales and Marketing', you depraved monkeys."
"A rose by any other name, Stef."
(userfriendly.org)
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow they may cancel your VISA.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed.-- George Carlin
Oh yeah? You wanna step out of the giant robot and say that again?
Beepilepsy, n: Aflicts those with vibrating pagers characterized by sudden spasms, goofy facial expressions and loss of speech
We're the technical experts. We were hired so that management could ignore our recommendations and tell us how to do our jobs.-- Mike Andrews (a.s.r.)
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons. (Popular Mechanics, March 1949)
"Debugging is anticipated with distaste, performed with reluctance, and bragged about forever."
Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
You're just jealous because the voices are talking to me and not you.
"And if you give us any more trouble, I shall visit you in the small hours and put a bat up your nightdress."-- Basil Fawlty
All right brain, I don't like you and you don't like me - so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer.-- Homer Simpson
From the 'Rules for women':
Women wearing Wonderbras and low-cut blouses lose their right to complain about being stared at.
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. (Oxford University Press)
feet and stones may break my bones, but metrics are more comprehensive
Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn."-- David Russell
Seminars, n.: From `semi' and `arse', hence, any half-assed discussion.
When in danger, when in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout.
When in trouble, when in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout
The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down.
"When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C. Know what the Russians used?"
"A pencil?"
"A pencil."-- Leo, Toby and Sam, and Leo (West Wing)
"Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves."-- J. B. Priestley
In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.-- Groucho Marx
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves but wiser people are full of doubts.-- Bertrand Russell
The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."-- George W. Bush
The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly attributed to the extensive reading of so-called 'science fiction' by our young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making, societies of 'aliens' without a good Christian among them, and raw sex between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will of God.-- Jerry Falwell (Reader's Digest, 1985)
"Women are like cell phones. They like to be held and talked to, but push the wrong button, and you'll be disconnected."
“I speak two languages: Body and English.”-- Mae West
Anyone with a bit of intelligence and enough perseverance could do magic, which was why the wizards cloaked it with rituals and the whole pointy-hat business.
The trick was to do magic and get away with it.-- Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures)
Cruel men believe in a cruel God and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.-- Bertrand Russell
"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do."-- Dale Carnegie
At a doctors office in Rome:
"Specialist in women and other diseases"
"Life was so much easier when your clothes didn't match and boys had cooties"
By working faithfully 8 hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work 12 hours a day.-- Robert Frost
"It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.-- Kahlil Gibran
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
I like to go to art museums and name the untitled paintings. Boy With Pail... Kitten On Fire...-- Steven Wright
Ponder: "It's all done by magic, Archchancellor."
Ridcully: "Ah. Right. None of that complicated business with springs and cogwheels and tubes and stuff, then."
Ponder: "That's right, sir. Just magic. Sufficiently advanced magic."-- Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)
The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.-- Clarence Darrow
"I like to go to the beach and bury metal objects that say 'get a life' on them"
A trial is a lot like gladiator combat. Except trials don't feature half-naked men in armor with swords and spears and those ball thingies at the ends of ropes. Well, okay -- the good trials do, but it doesn't happen often enough, if you ask me.-- Jonathan Colan
The American public knows what it wants, and deserves to get it good and hard.-- H. L. Mencken
"Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll; women include anger in their vocabulary and suddenly they're angry and militant."-- Ani DiFranco
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.-- Oscar Wilde
Men are like parking spaces: the good ones are taken and the rest are handicapped.
Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.-- Andrew Lias
"I'd like to meet the person who invented sex and see what they're working on now."
If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
"You are so lovely."
"Yes."
"Yes! And you take a compliment, too! I like that in a goddess."
Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.-- Oscar Wilde
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.-- Bertrand Russell
We were raised in vastly different places,/
Yet speak this uncanny similar tongue./
Sometimes we're different races./
Certainly we're different classes./
Yet our common bonds and common graces,/
Common wounds and destinations,/
Keep us closer than some married folks.-- Judy Grahn
"Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them."
Cigarette, n: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco inbetween.
The principle difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
"Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work."-- Clive Barker
"Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends."-- S. Weir Mitchell
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."-- Thomas A. Edison
"Forget all those health clinics and gyms. Sex is the best cure for everything, especially stress. If I have a good night of sex, all my problems are gone by 10 o' clock in the morning."-- Grace Jones
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.-- Thomas Jefferson
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
Politicians should be changed frequently, like diapers - and for much the same reason.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing milk bone underwear."-- Norm (Cheers)
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.-- Katharine Hepburn
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."-- Voltaire
The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night.-- Otto Von Bismarck
I always say, keep a diary, and some day it'll keep you.-- Mae West
Motrin and espresso. The breakfast of champions.-- Sweet Poly
It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.-- Abraham Lincoln
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.-- Dr. Seuss
You probably go to museums and complain that Monet pressed down too hard with his crayons because the picture is all bumpy.-- John Woods
"Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective."-- Stephen Covey
Alien, n: A being who travels great distances to molest our cattle and trample our grain.
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
Regrettable Necessity, n:
An avoidable atrocity. The term is often employed by presidents and prime ministers when announcing bombings of civilian targets and invasions of small countries.-- Chaz Bufe (The Devil's Dictionaries)
...as opposed to Xena's paradox, which is, "How exactly can she fight in that leather outfit, and leave all of that flesh exposed, and survive?"
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."-- Mark Twain
"The Hindenburg crash had 62 survivors and 35 fatalities. Of the 35 deaths, 27 resulting from jumping from the airship. Many of the remaining 8 deaths resulted from burns and injuries due to the ensuing diesel fuel fire."-- Dan Egnor
People must think I'm a mushroom. They constantly keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matter compared to what lies within us.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.-- Stephen Hawking
I think an embryo/fetus/baby becomes a "person" when it is smarter than a non-primate like a dog. By those standards, chimpanzees and gorillas are persons (although somewhat cognitively impaired--kind of like Fundamentalist Christians), but human newborns are not.-- Dave Touretzsky
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Come, let us retract the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.
Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent... Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair... Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work... Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.-- Mary Jean Irion (Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation)
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
"We are all born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society."-- Miss Manners (Judith Martin)
"Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed."-- R.S. Ingersoll
We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being increasingly capable.
-- Peter Cochrane
"In our minds, love and lust are really separated. It's hard to find someone that can be kind and you can trust enough to leave your kids with, and isn't afraid to throw her man up against the wall and lick him from head to toe."-- Tori Amos
"Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."-- Mark Twain
Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete.
You don't wanna get laid, man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you gotta talk to 'em. (Colors)
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.-- Disraeli
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.-- Albert Einstein
"And is it right, butterfly, they like you better framed and dried?"-- Tori Amos (Butterfly)
"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."-- Cyril Connolly
"A lot of times we sit around here and talk and comment, and rarely it is, 'Wow! I can't believe how good that is!' It's usually like, 'Oh my God! What's happened to the world?' I can sit here and bitch about how bad music is, or I can go make it better."-- Trent Reznor
"I wish I could drink like a lady
I can take one or two at the most.
Three and I'm under the table --
Four and I'm under the host!"
Everyone has their first date... and the object is to hide your flaws. And then you're in a relationship and it's all about hiding your disappointment. Then once you're married it's about hiding your sins. (Dollhouse)
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
"...why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want."-- Ayn Rand
"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives."-- William Dement
Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
Cops and reporters are much alike. Both are absolutely dedicated to doing the job at hand, regardless of obstacles. And both, deep down, really believe the rules don't apply to them.-- Jim Barlow (Houston Chronicle)
If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.... It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.-- Albert Einstein
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.-- Franz Kafka
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-- Albert Einstein
"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."-- John Adams
"I understand your question and the answer is 'You're thinking too hard.'"-- Jose Garcia
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?-- Kelvin Throop III
When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.-- R. Pirsig
"There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'."-- Dave Barry
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.-- Kin Hubbard
Say what you like about me, but sometimes I wish that I were really rich and didn't have to work. And also handsome.-- Dave George
Jason squared his shoulders, drew the Sword of - I couldn't give a toss what it's supposed to be called, he said to himself, I shall call it Freckles - and took one step forward.-- Tom Holt ("Ye Gods!")
Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.-- Anais Nin
The primary difference between a man and a woman is that a man gets his self-esteem when a woman says "yes" and a woman gets hers when she says "no". (Amy's Orgasm)
Grandpa: "I'm an old man, no one listens to me."
Lisa: "I'm a young girl, no one listens to me."
Homer: "I'm a white male aged 18 to 49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are."
*homer walks over to the cabinet and takes out a can labeled "Nuts and Gum: Together At Last"* (The Simpsons)
The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.-- Robert Pirsig
I have yet to meet a C compiler that is more friendly and easier to use than eating soup with a knife.
Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.
The BeOS takes the best features from the major operating systems. It's got the power and flexibility of Unix, the interface and ease of use of the MacOS, and Minesweeper from Windows.-- Tyler Riti
I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck.-- Rob Pike (on X)
"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."-- Terry Pratchett
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."-- Mark Twain
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?-- Woody Allen ("Without Feathers")
"Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards."-- Soren F. Petersen
"Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly.
"In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips."
"But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.
"Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good copy."-- Harvard Lampoon ("Bored of the Rings")
"Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."-- Mark Twain
Love is like pi: natural, irrational and very important.-- Lisa Hoffman
"[Men, particularly in the British press] come in asking me why I'm so agressive and why I hate them, and, and, what they don't understand with this record is that it's about incredible passion and incredible desire and incredible need and then, love. It's all gotta be in there if you're being fair about it."-- Tori Amos
"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."-- Friedrick Nietzsche
"We tend to idealize tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nut cases."-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
"Any girl can be glamourous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."-- Hedy Lamarr
"So you want a realistic, down-to-earth show that's off-the-wall and full of magical robots?" (The Simpsons)
Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it.
Only an artist knows what he meant to say with his work, and sometimes you'll need to deal with it.
"Life's a bitch, then you die. Then your necromancer daughter resurrects you, and life is still a bitch."
X.400 is the mail system of the future, and I hope it stays that way.-- Erik Fair
"Being a minister's daughter means you get really good poppy seed cake at Christmas time, and you get really wonderful dresses and things made by these really nice little old ladies. And you also get this incredible amount of confusion. But when you're 14 years old, and you don't know what your beliefs are, you're taking on everybody's beliefs around you and you're making them yours. And I'm not about the institutionalized Church at all."-- Tori Amos (Little Earthquakes Video)
"If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual."-- Frank Herbert
"Life sucks. And just when you think it couldn't get any worse, it will. My suggestion? Sleep through it."
To my opinion, most modern poetry is written because people do not want to stand up and fight for what they are writing about.
In a nonsmoking area:
"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."-- Bertrand Russell
"Almost any animal is capable learning a stimulus/response association, given enough repitition."
"Experimental observation suggests that this isn't true if double-clicking is involved."-- Lionel and Malcom Ray (scary devil monastery)
"I have so many different personalities in me, and I still feel lonely."-- Tori Amos
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.-- Eric Hoffer
I want to die like my grandfather, peaceful and in my sleep - not screaming like the other people in the car.
"The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood."-- George Bernard Shaw
Ask a man which way he is going to vote and he will probably tell you. Ask him however why and vagueness is all.-- Bernard Levin
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown, but only 4 to extend your middle finger and tell someone to "bite me!"
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.-- Confucius
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.-- Aldous Huxley
Life is like a grapefruit...it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.-- Ford Prefect
I think having 'Men' and 'Women' signs on bathrooms is a bad idea, because if aliens thought those rooms held standard specimens and went in to record data, they'd get some pretty bizarre examples.-- April Van Scherpe
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."-- John Gilmore
"We need a new cosmology. New Gods. New Sacraments. Another drink."-- Patti Smith
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog."-- Mark Twain
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.-- Rich Cook
VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is
sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and sometimes
fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus drivers.
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
We don't believe this to be a coincidence.-- Jeremy S. Anderson
Punctuation is important. There is a world of semantic difference between "Damn straight." and "Damn, straight."
I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.-- John Donne
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila."-- Mitch Radcliffe
"Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, and then everybody disagrees."
-- Boris Marshalov
WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."-- Ambrose Bierce
"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up. All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words, and little dumb ideas, and don't be too scary, and make sure there's a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it."-- Ursula K. Le Guin
In a church bulletin: Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
"I want a chocolate bar infused with nicotine that's got a creamy coffee center... And wrap it in porn." (TheWax.com)
A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.-- Elbert Hubbard
The disarmament of fear, in ourselves and those that oppose, propels us. Every step forward brings the possibility of backlash. But forward we go.-- David G. Welton
His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, `You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.'-- Terry Pratchett
"That's the trouble with women these days. They act like men and want to be treated like women" (An American in Paris)
I'm an apatheist. The question is no longer interesting, and the answer no longer matters.-- petro (a.s.r)
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.-- Sean O'Casey
The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.-- Gloria Leonard
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.-- R. D. Laing
I had a deprived childhood, you see. I had lots of other kids to play with and my parents bought me outdoor toys and refused to ill-treat me, so it never occurred to me to seek solitary consolation with a good book.-- Terry Pratchett
"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what entertainment is all about... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."-- Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes)
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach and up.
Nononono. fourth and fifth ribs. Cleaner, too...-- Two girls, HPslash
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.-- Samuel Johnson
Just as the whole is more than the sum of parts, the forest more than the tree and birds, so is mankind greater than the wanking of its nerds on slashdot.org.
It's summer and some people head for the woods.
Canoe wild streams to show they've got the goods,
Hiking and biking and running outdoors;
I think I'll just go out and lie on my porch.
Give me two pillows and a bottle of Pabst.
I once was a traveller, but my interest lapsed;
I went thousands of miles, natives to see
They were sitting on porches, laughing at me.-- Garrison Keillor
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."-- Hemingway
One of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence.-- Bertrand Russell
"How else am I to get you to treat me like a man of weight and substance unless I act as morally perturbed and angst-ridden as everyone else in this room?"-- Beast (X-Men comic)
"Being a graduate student is like becoming all of the Seven Dwarves. In the beginning you're Dopey and Bashful. In the middle, you are usually sick (Sneezy), tired (Sleepy), and irritable (Grumpy). But at the end, they call you Doc, and then you're Happy."
"Alcohol is the cause and the solution to many of life's problems."-- Homer Simpson
There are many ways to define our fragile existence; many ways to give it meaning. But it is our memories that shape its purpose and give it context.-- Mohinder Suresh (Heroes)
Let not young minds be smothered out before
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride
It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull
Its poor are ox-like, limp, and leaden-eyed.
Not that they starve, but that they starve so dreamlessly.
Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap.
Not that they serve, but that they have no gods to serve.
Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.-- Vachel Lindsay
Imagine a stegosaurus wearing rocket powered roller skates, and you'll get a fair idea of its elegance, stability and ease of crash recovery.-- Lionel Lauer
On emulating hormones and long-range neurotransmitters:
"If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very small and your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as it's on the correct continent and you have until the next ice age to get the work done, then you don't have a very difficult profession. I see no reason why simulating that anachronism would present the slightest difficulty."-- John K. Clark
Dublin University contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.-- Samuel Beckett
I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it anymore, and what's it seems weird and scary.-- Abraham Simpson
The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.-- David Friedman
Future: That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.-- Ambrose Bierce
Math Anxiety: An intense lifelong fear of two trains approaching each other at speeds of 60 and 80 mph. (Cynic's Dictionary)
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was tautology."-- Mark Twain
"Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth."-- Dave Barry
"Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what's wrong with it."
"I picked up a Magic 8-Ball the other day and it said 'Outlook not so good.' I said, 'Sure, but Microsoft still ships it.'"
I listen so that I may decipher the mystery of myself and become more whole.-- Richard Moss
Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding.-- Mahatma Gandhi
It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.-- H.G. Wells
"Right and wrong are not what separate us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us. Both sides blame one another. There's no good or bad side. Just 2 sides holding different views."-- Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy 8)
Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: No one to blame.-- Erica Jong
Anything invented before your fifteenth birthday is the order of nature. That's how it should be. Anything invented between your 15th and 35th birthday is new and exciting, and you might get a career there. Anything invented after that day, however, is against nature and should be prohibited.-- Douglas Adams
"For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong."-- H. L. Mencken
The guests giggled, and floated down to the bottom of the garden to inspect the herbaceous borders, and snatch a quick snog before the crudities.-- Stephen Foster
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.-- H. L. Mencken
The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.-- Harlan Ellison
I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling.-- Robert Fulghum
"Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it."-- Tori Amos
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.-- Oscar Levant
Remember, to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and to be forearmed is to be half octopus.-- Gene Smith
The great enemy of truth is often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.-- John F. Kennedy
I love you, you love me,
With a little fricassee
And some mustard and ketchup smeared all over you,
Can't I have you for lunch too?
"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you."-- Lao-Tzu
I thought I was in love once, and then later I thought maybe it was just an inner-ear imbalance.-- Fraser (Due South)
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.-- Konrad Lorenz
"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'"-- Dave Barry
Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.-- Mark Van Doren
The world is made up of too many insensitive, malicious people unworthy of my attention who by their every word and action declare themselves an enemy of who and what I am ... and these people make decisions that affect my life. Fortunately, I have developed the self-confidence and strength to withstand these things or I wouldn't be here today ... but I'm still pissed, and I have every right to that anger.-- Carleton Cornish
"The main differences between a computer salesman and a used car salesman is that the used car salesman can probably drive and knows when he's lying."-- Peter da Silva
"We create an environment where it is alright to hate, to steal, to cheat, and to lie if we dress it up with symbols of respectability, dignity and love."-- Whitney Moore
And we all think that we’re very rational and very secular, but we make gods all the time. Everybody went apeshit when Barack Obama got elected. I was delighted. Everybody was thrilled: a sane, rational, intelligent human being in an important office. Great! But his biggest problem is everybody else! Is us! ‘Cause everybody’s in love with him! He stands up there - he’s very convincing and commanding and makes sense - he says: "It’s a difficult time, everyone needs to work together and be realistic about what we need to do..", and all that stuff - and everbody’s looking at him going: "NO! You do it! You’re SUPER JESUS. You’re so handsome when you’re serious. Do you work out?"-- Dylan Moran
The world is your oyster, you know. it smells like seawater and it might clamp shut on your finger and inside there's a glob of something that's like a big living glob of snot, and maybe - *if* you're lucky! - a little deformed pearl.-- Lisa Kellner
I maintain that it is my studies of humanities subjects that have given me my analytical abilities and the empathy it takes to work on user satisfaction issues, and the enabling technology of computers is a minor nuts'n'bolts thing, overvalued as "education."-- Roger Klorese
"Evangelists say Halloween is the devil's holiday. What a lame-ass devil! Sitting down in the depths of hell, going, 'I've got control of the major corporations, churning out weapons and toxic waste, but how can I get candy? Let me think--I'll get the children of the world to dress up as hobos and Power Rangers--and then I'll have all the bite-size Three Musketeers I need! Buhahaha!'"
It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber.
Imagination, n: A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.-- Ambrose Bierce
There's a common component of scientific thought which says that a) if you're not a convicted Scientist then you can't get involved in discussions about Science and b) Science is all about Progress and means that things will always get better if Scientists are in Control.-- Neil Lewis
Do you know the difference between involvement and commitment? Think of ham and eggs. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.-- Martina Navratilova
"Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream. You'd have to be daft not to try both when there are so many flavours."-- Björk
PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil, perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals.-- Jon Ribbens
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience... Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.-- Howard Zinn
I've decided, I'm going to feed every little addiction and silently go mad 'cause right now my writing sucks.-- Zaffel
Dragons are the living embodiment of power, purpose, and real estate devaluation.-- Marc Gabriele
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."-- Oscar Wilde
"Indifference is isolation. In difference is texture and wonder."-- Edwin Schlossberg
It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant examples.-- Charles Dickens
"I open up more when it's conversational. Otherwise, they're proving how smart they are, and I'm proving how smart I am. It's a penis race, and we're both losing. I'd rather just hang out and see where it can go."-- Tori Amos (The Orlando Sentinel, April 12, 1996)
You don't have to flaunt technical ability in order to benefit from it. If you have the capability to play a million notes, and then you play only three notes, that lends an amazing profundity to the three notes you did choose.-- Robert Fripp (paraphrased)
"Aaaarghhhh."
This was the noise made as he missed the lurching Thing by several meters and was realising that, if you have tied a rope to the top of a very high and extremely solid stone tower and are now swinging towards it, failing to hit something on the way is an error which you will regret for the rest of your truncated life.-- Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures)
You wouldn't know a good time if it stripped naked, hopped on your face, and started wiggling!-- C. Stanley
"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."-- Lucille Ball
"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."-- Francais Bacon
"There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have."-- Don Herold
"For flavor, instant sex will never supercede the stuff you have to peel and cook."-- Quentin Crisp
"And I'm not all that decent and honorable. I'm merely well-bred, which I hope is a tolerable substitute."-- Anne Rice (Ramses the Damned)
In science it often happens that scientists say, You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken, and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.-- Carl Sagan (1987 CSICOP keynote address.)
Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.-- James Thurber
"Our American professors like their literature clear, cold, pure and very dead."-- Sinclair Lewis
That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?"-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)