240 hits
"[The] human mind was like a compass. No matter how much you shook it up, no matter what happened to it, sooner or later it'd carry on pointing the same way."-- Terry Pratchett (Johnny and the Dead)
"Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot."
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
He who laughs last found the dirty meaning.
Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down.
And the pickles frolicked with the waffles, joyously.
Men are like parking spaces: the good ones are taken and the rest are handicapped.
He who laughs last probably didn't understand the joke.
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
Some women get excited about nothing, and then marry him.
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."-- Mark Twain
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.-- Franz Kafka
The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.-- Lyndon B Johnson
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.-- Aldous Huxley
"In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the dead."-- Mark Twain
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
I'm an apatheist. The question is no longer interesting, and the answer no longer matters.-- petro (a.s.r)
"Alcohol is the cause and the solution to many of life's problems."-- Homer Simpson
"And the heat goes on... where the hand has been."-- Byrne/Eno
"I understand your question and the answer is 'You're thinking too hard.'"-- Jose Garcia
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
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.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.-- Anais Nin
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."
The applied mathematician can find the solution to any difficulty, whilst the pure mathematician can find the difficulty to any solution.
"To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition."-- Albert Einstein
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. But you know most of them didn't get the joke in the first place, the lying weasels.-- Wade Kwon
Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.-- Thomas Jefferson
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)
Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and the last fish been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money.-- 19th Century Cree Indian
If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.-- Clarence Darrow
Why can't some people take a joke? Well, maybe because they're honest, and the joke doesn't belong to them.-- Matt Diamond
Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has to really want to change.
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
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.
I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.-- Voltaire
Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous?
A: A canary with the super-user password.
Insecurity is comparing our behind the scenes to others highlight reel.
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.-- James Branch Cabell
Proof by omission: The reader may easily supply the details. The other 253 cases are analogous.
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.-- Wernher von Braun
As I stare into the abyss of the toilet bowl I try hard to rememeber the reason why I felt the desperate need to mix vodka and red wine with whiskey and tequila.-- Shirley Manson
May you get to Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead.-- Irish Proverb
I thought I was in love once, and then later I thought maybe it was just an inner-ear imbalance.-- Fraser (Due South)
Politics is like coaching a football team. You have to be smart enough to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
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
It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.-- W. Somerset Maugham
I think it's a beautiful day to go to the zoo and feed the ducks.
To the lions.-- Brian Kantor (the SDM)
"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."-- Friedrick Nietzsche
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
"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have is that I didn't study my Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."-- Dan Quayle
There are three sorts of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.-- Oscar Wilde
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
It is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.-- Audre Lorde
"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."-- Drew Carey
"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."
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
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.-- Matt Groening
Adolescence, n: The stage between puberty and adultery.
I save about twenty drafts -- that's ten meg of disc space -- and the last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are wiped.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.-- Oscar Levant
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
Dublin University contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.-- Samuel Beckett
Little Johnny was a scientist.
Little Johnny is no more.
For what he thought was H2O
was H2SO4.
"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
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?
Unfortunately, there are like five people in the world who understand the X keyboard model--I'm not one of them--and three are insane. It's that bad.-- Tim Showalter
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
"Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, and then everybody disagrees."
-- Boris Marshalov
"Well, to be fair I did have a couple of gadgets he probably didn't, like a teaspoon and an open mind."-- The Doctor
"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!'"
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
"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."
Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.-- Amy Lowell
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.-- Konrad Lorenz
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.-- T.S. Eliot
"Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent."-- Elvis Costello
Um, anyway, what Java is really like is C++ that was neutered in an attempt to reduce its tendency to hump random objects, then took to huffing paint to escape its despair, and eventually did itself in but got raised from the dead.-- Jed Davis
"The Camden Aquarium, in defense of sharks, has a placard stating that the most lethal wild animal in the US is deer. (Their mode of attack is to stand in your headlights, and then launch their dead or crippled bodies through the windscreen into your lap)."
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.-- Douglas Adams
"Legend -- a lie that has attained the dignity of age."-- H. L. Mencken
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.-- Dr. Who ("Face of Evil")
Always behave like a duck: keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.-- Jacob Braude
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.-- Mark Twain
Abnormal, adj:
Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.-- Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary)
"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
"God is my co-pilot, but the Devil is my bombardier."-- Bumper sticker
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)
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.-- Rita Mae Brown
"And the thing is, I like my evil like I like my men--evil. You know, straight up, black hat, 'Tied to the train tracks, soon my electro-ray will destroy metropolis' bad."-- Buffy (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
"Don't keep a man guessing too long--he's sure to find the answer somewhere else."-- Mae West
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
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction.
On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction.
The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly.
The crucial point is if you can tell which is which.-- Dolph Sharp ("I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot")
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)
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.-- Bertrand Russell
"[Re: extinction of species, and the desperate need to blame someone]
> There are 3,500 species of ant.
Today. To the best of our knowledge. How many were there before the great Hexapodia Race Wars three thousand years ago, when the Better Red Than Dead Alliance destroyed the Polka-Dot League, slaughtering thousands of billions of thinking, feelering individuals in an act of genocide unmatched since the K-T event when the Brontosaurus' attempt at a space program using their largest-ever catapult went horribly wrong?"
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.-- La Bruyere
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
-- Josh Billings
"You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for insurance company directors?"
"Really?" said Arthur. "No I didn't. For what offense?"
Trillian frowned. "What do you mean, offense?"
"I see."-- Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
He believes in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man who does not understand them.-- George Bernard Shaw
"Did I love her? I thought so. But from my new vantage point I realize that love is nothing more than a messy conglomoration of need, desperation, fear of death, insecurity about penis size, and the self-involved, ego-driven need to college other people's hearts." (Human Nature)
"Do not bend the spoon, instead realize the truth."
"The truth?"
"That the spoon effect will be added later by some sort of SGI workstation."
Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A: To get to the other slide.
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.-- Kahlil Gibran
Magrat shivered. She told herself that a witch had absolute control over her own body, and the goosepimples under her thin nightdress were just a figment of her own imagination. The trouble was, she had an excellent imagination.-- Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)
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
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
The unique operations of the (human) brain are the result of natural selection operating through the filter of culture. They have suspended us between the two antipodal ideals of nature and machine, forest and city, the natural and the artifactual, relentlessly seeking, in the words of geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, an equilibrium not of this world.-- Edward O. Wilson ("Biophilia")
Quantum mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."-- C. A. R. Hoare
QUOTE OF THE DAY: `
"Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them."
I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
"Bother," said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
Guru, n: A computer owner who can read the manual.
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
What goes around usually gets dizzy and falls over.
The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
Adventure: The land between entertainment and panic.
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time. (A coffee cup)
Feature, n: A surprising property of a program. Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. ``That's not a bug, it's a feature!'' A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
"...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
"Must... defy... laws... of... physics!"-- The Tick
Sometimes before bed, I look in the mirror and wonder just what I'll be doing in ten years. Then I look at the clock and think, 'Probably flossing.'-- April Van Scherpe
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)
People must think I'm a mushroom. They constantly keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
Labeling something as sarcasm utterly undercuts the effect. The whole point about sarcasm is that it's risky; it depends on your hearer getting the literal meaning and then seeing that you can't mean that so you must mean something else and working out what that other thing must be. Your hearer has to do some interpretive work, and that work is the effect.-- Arnold Zwicky
"If you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil."-- Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency)
Imaginative writers are valuable colleagues and their testimony is to be rated very highly because they draw on sources that we have not yet made accessible to science. The portrayal of the psychic life of human beings is, of course, the imaginative writer's most special demand. He has always been the forerunner of science and thus scientific psychology, too.-- Sigmund Freud
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."-- Theodore Rubin
Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.-- Mark Twain
At a silly valley place I just visited [..] they have a parrot that 'rings'. It'll 'ring' a couple times, presumably because it enjoys the power of being able to make everyone in the room do the Macarena, and then it will answer itself. "Hello!"-- Gary S. Callison (a.s.r.)
In a church bulletin: "Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands."
The experience of programming Windows vs the experience of programming NeXTStep is like going to the dentist and having a root canal without anaesthetic vs going to the dentist and having your gums cleaned with some nitrous oxide thrown in for the entertainment side of things.-- Bill Bumgarner
Destinesia: The act of entering a room and forgetting why.
"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")
The biblical concepts of sin and salvation are an integral part of Christian doctrine. Christianity first creates a problem (sin) and then offers a "solution" (salvation). This is not unlike the protection racket; you either buy "protection"--or else!"-- Domald Morgan
"[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
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.
Television: the bland leading the bland.
Accountant - someone who can put two and two together and make a living from it.
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
"Women are like cell phones. They like to be held and talked to, but push the wrong button, and you'll be disconnected."
"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")
As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.-- Noam Chomsky
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
Is there anything safer than TV-style seriousness--i.e., delivering the conventional wisdom as if it were the deeply important truth?-- Pauline Kael
The morality advocated by those you call "gay liberation's true believers" is indeed a radical one. It is rooted in such tenets as "all men are created equal" and that everyone is entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is based on a strong belief in freedom of association, freedom of religion, the free exercise of individual rights and responsibilities, freedom of speech. All very radical ideas--still.-- Doretta Schrock
If the pen is mightier than the sword then how can actions speak louder than words?
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)
"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
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
Lost: gray and white female cat. Answers to electric can opener.
The definition of easy work is work that someone else has to do.
"The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they will believe they are as clever as he."-- Karl Kraus
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
"Well... no," he admitted wryly, "we drank all the beer, taught the kittens to Cha-Cha, watched Baywatch Nights and then you passed out."
"We WHAT?"
"We drank all the beer..."
"No, no, not that." Xander looked horrified. "We watched Baywatch Nights? That's it. That's really it! I'm never drinking again!" (Xander has kittens, Spurglie)
"Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the dead and with the other world, whatever it is; right now we could predict, if we only exerted enough mental will, what is giong to happen within the next hundred years and be able to take steps to avoid all kinds of catastrophes. When a man dies he undergoes a mutation in his brain that we know nothing about now but which will be very clear someday if scientists get on the ball. The bastards right now are only interested in seeing if they can blow up the world."-- Bull (On the Road)
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."-- Mark Twain
He raised his hand, pointed the Colt and fired.
It would be an exaggeration to say that the whole of Skinner's life flashed before his eyes, because he'd had a long and interesting life and there simply wasn't time. He'd got as far as his sixth birthday party, when Jenny Mason ate too much jelly roll and was sick on Mom's new carpet, when he realised he was still alive.-- Tom Holt ("My Hero")
Oh yeah? You wanna step out of the giant robot and say that again?
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)
Academe, n:
An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
Academy, n:
[from Academe] A modern school where football is taught.-- Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary)
"Remember the Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules."
"Before I walk out on stage, I set my parameters for the room. It's kind of like a witch with her brew. I decide what I'm bringing to the party that night. And I bring different things with me in every city that I play. But I try and tune myself to the audience out there. And again it's smelling what's cooking in the kitchen. It always comes back to [sniff] a little garlic [sniff] she's got pudding in the oven [sniff]. And then, once you know what that's all about, then you go, [cute face] 'We're gonna bring a little of this tonight.'"-- Tori Amos (Little Earthquakes video)
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses.-- Bjarne Stroustrup
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.-- E. B. White
"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."-- Mark Twain
Argue not with Dragons, for thou art crunchy and go well with cheese.
You're just jealous because the voices are talking to me and not you.
The ability to ask questions like `Where am I and who is the "I" that is asking?' is one of the things that distinguishes mankind from, say, cuttlefish. [Footnote: Although of course it's not the most obvious thing and there are, in fact, some beguiling similarities, particularly the tendency to try to hide behind a big cloud of ink in difficult situations]-- Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent)
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.
Three Accounts for the Super-users in the sky,
Seven for the Operators in their halls of fame,
Nine for Ordinary Users doomed to crie,
One for the Illegal Cracker with his evil game
In the Domains of Internet where the data lie.
One Account to rule them all, One Account to watch them,
One Account to make them all and in the network bind them
In the Domains of Internet where the data lie.
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend--or a meaningful day.-- The Dalai Lama ("Time," 11 April 1988)
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
The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.-- Gloria Leonard
Come, let us retract the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.
Frisbeetarianism: the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. ("Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior")
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
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
"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell."
Stand and fight, you misbegotten spawn of the perverse breeding between a pixie and a squirrel!
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer. That you are here--that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"-- Tom Schulman (Dead Poets Society)
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.-- Robert Hutchins ("Great Books", 1954)
Falling in Love
When two people have been on enough dates, they generally fall in love. You can tell you're in love by the way you feel: your head becomes light, your heart leaps within you, you feel like you're walking on air, and the whole world seems like a wonderful and happy place. Unfortunately, these are also the four warning signs of colon disease, so it's always a good idea to check with your doctor.
-- Dave Barry
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I choose to accept."-- Calvin and Hobbes
PATRIOTISM, n:
1) The inability to distinguish between the government and one's 'country';
2) A highly praiseworthy virtue characterized by the desire to dominate and kill;
3) A feeling of exultation experienced when contemplating heaps of charred 'enemy' corpses;
4) The first, last, and perennial refuge of scoundrels.-- Chaz Bufe (The Devil's Dictionaries ("American Heretic's Dictionary" section))
Q. What's the difference between an aerobics instructor and a well-mannered professional torturer?
A. The torturer would apologize first.
“I speak two languages: Body and English.”-- Mae West
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was tautology."-- Mark Twain
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
2, 3, 3, 37 - the prime factorization of the beast.
It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.-- Woody Allen
"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.'"
To err is human. And stupid.
Lecture, n: Where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one.
For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless, and then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.-- Bill Bryson
"I don't mind you coming here and wasting all my time, 'cause when you're standing oh so near, I kinda lose my mind."-- The Cars
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its de-evolution into the shiny things network.-- The Onion
I like the kind of people that can hold on to the the feeling they have after the song or movie ends.
Auntie Em--Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog.-- Dorothy