698 hits
When in doubt, mumble.
"I don't know who Jim Henson is but I've heard he has his hand in a lot of things around here."-- Kermit the Frog (in 1972)
Headline: Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years
When in danger, when in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout.
When in trouble, when in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout
In case of emergency, speak in cliches.
The future exists first in the imagination, then in the will, then in reality.
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.-- Anais Nin
"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."-- Mark Twain
Headline: Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case
"If you're one in a million, there are ten of you in New York."
Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense?
"Linux is free as in Syphilis" (slashdot)
Chef, n.: Any cook who swears in French.
In case of nuclear war, prayer in schools will be okay.
Cat: Ethereal music wreathed in mystery.
"Let us swear while we may, for in heaven it wont be allowed."-- Mark Twain
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
At a doctors office in Rome:
"Specialist in women and other diseases"
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.-- Lily Tomlin
Morris dancing is an exercise in fertility.
A crappie is not a sunfish found in a toilet.
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.-- Albert Einstein
You'll go to Heck if you don't believe in Gosh.
"The learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but still 'tis nonsense."-- Benjamin Franklin
"God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New--the Jekyll and Hyde of sacred romance."-- Mark Twain
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?-- Lily Tomlin
"Be virtuous and you will be eccentric."-- Mark Twain
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men.-- Mae West
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.-- Mark Twain
Half of the people in the world are below average.
Sign in a hotel elevator in Paris:
"Please leave your values at the front desk."
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
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
I plead contemporary insanity.
"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
It's only fun if you can get in trouble for doing it.
The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
Primus in orbe Deus fecit timor.
"It was fear that introduced gods into the world."
The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.-- Mark Twain
A wolf in sheeps clothing needs professional help.
"Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog."
The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony #9.-- Erwin Dietrich
"In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the dead."-- Mark Twain
"Familiarity breeds contempt--and children."-- Mark Twain
Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!
"Virtue has never been as respectable as money."-- Mark Twain
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.-- Mark Twain
There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic.-- Lily Tomlin
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."-- Anais Nin
"When angry, count four; when very angry, swear."-- Mark Twain
"'Stay' is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary."
You're about as accurate as an archer in a centrifuge.
Nobody ever forgets where he buried a hatchet.-- Kin Hubbard
There are multitudes in me. But not if I have to behave.
Headline: Arson Suspect is Held in Massachusetts Fire
Headline: Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
Proof by intimidation: 'Trivial'.
A genius is just a crazy person with an audience-- Tim Minchin
If I'm not back in five minutes, wait longer. (Ace Ventura)
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.-- Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)
Join the army: meet interesting people, then kill them.
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
Adultery: Putting yourself in someone else's position.
"I'm not mad at the world... just at all the people in it."
"Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together."-- Anais Nin
Only the good die young. Note the average age in Congress.
"Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear."
Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
"Indifference is isolation. In difference is texture and wonder."-- Edwin Schlossberg
Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated THEN!-- Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)
Answer the phone naked. Callers will hear it in your voice.
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.-- Kin Hubbard
Fanfiction is just fixing things in post-post-production
There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.-- Benjamin Dana
May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts.
Life is too short not to be horny on main
I revel some but not nearly enough to get up on stage. In fact, the amount of drunken revelry required to get me on stage in a karaoke bar would probably also send me into a coma.-- Joe Lavin
Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next.-- Franklin P. Jones
A good listener is usually thinking about something else.-- Kin Hubbard
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
"We apologize for the error in last week's paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce." (Correction Notice in the Ely Standard)
"The degree of normality in a database is inversely proportional to that of its DBA"
Things written above an urinal: 'The future is in your hands!'
"People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases."-- Mark Twain
"Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."-- Mark Twain
Cat, n: Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.
"Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."-- Mark Twain
I want to die like my grandfather, peaceful and in my sleep - not screaming like the other people in the car.
"A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do."-- Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.-- Mark Twain
Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.-- Robert Heinlein
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.-- Albert Einstein
Men are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.-- Moliere
"Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed."-- Dalin B. Oaks
A healthy attitude also includes faults.
Do not mock a pain that you haven�t endured
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."-- Ursula K. Le Guin
[The Bible] has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.-- Mark Twain
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.-- Carl Sagan
I don't know much about morality but I know what I shouldn't like.-- Tim Minchin
Writing a Haiku
in seventeen syllables
is very diffic-
"The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience."
I'm extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.-- Kelvin Throop
In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
BASIC, n.:
A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.-- Mark Twain
"For flavor, instant sex will never supercede the stuff you have to peel and cook."-- Quentin Crisp
What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable.-- Albert Einstein
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur." (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
"You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus."-- Mark Twain
Being in a nudist colony probably takes all the fun out of Halloween.
My body is a temple. Virgin sacrifices at 11.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.-- Goethe
A grouch escapes so many little annoyances that it almost pays to be one.-- Kin Hubbard
Don't intterupt me when I'm talking to myself
Some people get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.-- Kin Hubbard
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful-- just stupid.)-- Robert A. Heinlein
The skin of civilization is only 7 meals thick
The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.-- Robert A. Heinlein
We think in language, therefore the quality of our thoughts can only ever be as good as the quality of our language.-- George Carlin
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?-- T. S. Eliot
That your decision was right doesn't in any way mean your reasons were.
'You are not in my shoes.' -- Worf
'Too bad. You'd be amazed at what I can do in a pair of size 18's.' -- Dax (Star Trek: DS9)
"Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone."-- Mark Twain
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was tautology."-- Mark Twain
"I'm often silent when I'm screaming inside."
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed."-- Mark Twain
"The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums."-- Peter De Vries
Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.-- Mark Twain
I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.-- Mark Twain
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice
You ain't inebriated if you can still spell it.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.-- Mark Twain
Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs.-- Tom Lehrer
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.-- Albert Einstein
C++, the language in which only friends can access your private members.
Only a monomaniac gets what we commonly refer to as results.-- Albert Einstein
I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.-- Lily Tomlin
I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.-- Lily Tomlin
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.-- Albert Einstein
"If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat."-- Mark Twain
Two guys walked into a bar. The third one ducked.
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.-- Mark Twain
"This was, apparently, beyond her ken. So far beyond her ken that she was well into barbie territory."-- J.D. Baldwin
Progress, n: The process through which the Internet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals.
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.-- Anais Nin
Adult: A person that has stopped growing at both ends but not in the middle.
I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.-- Lily Tomlin
If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.
Common sense: The collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.-- Albert Einstein
It is a good thing to in your mind be able to seperate the artist from the art.
Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?-- Groucho Marx
I have no problem dealing with reality, but as a lifestyle I find it too confining.-- Lily Tomlin
As far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.-- Bertrand Russell
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.-- Gandhi
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
Law of Hydrodynamics: When a body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.-- Albert Einstein
"The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular."-- Edward Gibbon
Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it.
"...the only place for 63,000 bugs is a rain forest"
"If Today Was a Fish, I'd Throw It Back In." (Song Title)
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.-- Albert Einstein
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head.
"Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed."-- R.S. Ingersoll
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-- Albert Einstein
The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do.-- Harold Coffin
Most children grow up to be adults in spite of their parents, not because of them.
The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers.
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.-- Mary Little
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
Experience allows you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.-- Franklin P. Jones
"Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work."-- Clive Barker
"No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved."-- Mignon McLaughlin
The intensity comes from meaning, not from extremes.
"It's Hong Kong action. Anything you know about physics is just going to hold you back."-- Robin D. Laws
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game."-- Paul Rodriguez
Don't seek happiness. Happiness is like an orgasm. If you think about it too much it goes away.-- Tim Minchin
"Not a Morning Person" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Notice in a hotel lobby in Bucharest:
"The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable."
"The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions."-- Maurice Chapelain
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.-- Anais Nin
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?-- Albert Einstein
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."-- Albert Einstein
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."-- Albert Einstein
"In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom...Make no mistake; all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S."-- William Burroughs
"I want a chocolate bar infused with nicotine that's got a creamy coffee center... And wrap it in porn." (TheWax.com)
Private faces in public places /
Are wiser and nicer /
Than public faces in private places.-- W.H. Auden
Arithmetic: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.
"Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they find laughable."
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to be insane in such a useful way that they can't commit you."-- Mark Edwards
"Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what we now know as Poland." (Nov. 1998 issue of Infosystems Executive)
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.-- Goethe
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
“How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.”-- Anais Nin
Headline: Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.-- Robert A. Heinlein
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-- Albert Einstein
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."-- Mark Twain
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.-- Albert Einstein
"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I choose to accept."-- Calvin and Hobbes
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.-- Ursula K. Le Guin
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
Marriage means commitment. Of course, so does insanity.
Your powers are useless, I'm wearing tin foil underwear!
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."-- Phillips Brooks
"Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations."-- Machiavelli
"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwile."-- Franklin P. Jones
Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule.-- Friedrich 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
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."-- Ben Franklin
"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
Headline: Never Withhold Herpes Infection from Loved One
"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."-- Benjamin Disraeli
"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."-- Ingrid Bergman
I used to have an internal modem, but it made me walk funny.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
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?
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?-- Kelvin Throop III
Don't ask "why" unless you're not disappointed with answers like "I don't know."-- Andrew Walenstein
Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself.-- Miguel de Unamuno (Spanish philosopher and writer)
"To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition."-- Albert Einstein
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.-- Robert A. Heinlein
"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them."-- Mark Twain
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
-- Henry Brooks Adams
Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.-- Albert Einstein
"There is a pleasure sure in being mad which none but madmen know."-- Dryden
The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
"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)."
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
"Ergotism is what you get if you overuse the word "therefore". Egotism on the other hand is a form of "I" strain."-- Paul Martin
Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.
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.
When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot in the universe- So what the hell, leap.
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Luxury is the main cause of boredom; Boredom is a main cause of extreme thoughts, eg. violence.
Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete.
People look ridiculous when they're in ecstasy.-- David Byrne
"If you weren't Cindy Crawford, you didn`t get to ride in the little cart. I saw them take her off on a little cart, and I thought, 'I'm in the wrong profession!'"-- Tori Amos (Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1992)
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought"-- Basho
I thought I was in love once, and then later I thought maybe it was just an inner-ear imbalance.-- Fraser (Due South)
Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.-- Aaron Levenstein
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.-- Mark Van Doren
I think that Vulcan is a geekocracy where the people who know the most about sci-fi get to rule.-- <br />
Keith Irwin
"The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are."-- Mark Twain
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
"Shouldn't we be carefully placing these comics in plastic bags?"
"No, we have lives." (MST3K)
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.-- Dr. Who
"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way."-- Charles Bukowski
In art, as in no other form of endeavor, there is meaning apart from success.-- Joseph Conrad
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."-- Ernest Hemingway
"Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."-- Mark Twain
"I don't need to be told how to do my job."
"I hope not, because it's by ass on the line and I'm up to my neck in it." (The Thin Blue Line)
Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.-- Bill Bulko
All good work is done in defiance of management.-- Bob Woodward
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."-- 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
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."-- Harvey Fierstein
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."-- Mark Twain
"In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law ... That would lead to anarchy. An individual who breaks a law that his conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."-- Martin Luther King
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.-- Larry Wall
Since before the Earth was formed and before the sun burned hot in space, cosmic forces of inexorable power have been working relentlessly toward this moment in space-time -- you receiving this fortune.
We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.-- Daniel J. Boorstin
"Some would sooner die than think. In fact, they often do."-- B. Russell
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.-- Plato
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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
"[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
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.-- Oscar Wilde
"We need a president who's fluent in at least one language."-- Buck Henry
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.-- Voltaire
Ralph's Observation: It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize that you are in a hurry.
Sign in a Nairobi restaurant:
"Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager."
A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
In a church bulletin: The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The Congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.-- Alan Keightley
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
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
"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
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there.
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?-- Paul Simon
What are we to make of a system that blames us for failing to procreate while refusing us custody of our children? That perpetuates the myth that we are weaklings while denying us the right to serve in the military? That regards us as incapable of forming stable relationships while forbidding us to marry?-- Richard Goldstein (in the "Gay Life 1991" segment of The Village Voice)
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.-- Albert Einstein
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
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.-- Steven Wright
Being called a poetess brings out the terroristress in me.-- Audre Lorde
An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.-- Don Marquis
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.
"In America sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world it is a fact."-- Marlene Dietrich
What's wrong with being drunk in bed? Being drunk on the floor of the garage, I can understand someone objecting to. But drunk in bed?-- Brad DeLong
"...only drugs make you feel as good as people in TV ads appear to be."-- Hakim Bey
"The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."-- Henrik Ibsen
There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.-- Francis Bacon
"We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public."-- Bryan White
Patageometry, n: The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant under brain transplants.
"Every man is afraid of something.That`s how you know he`s in love with you;when he is afraid of losing you"
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.-- Jonathan Swift
People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never slept in a room with a single mosquito.
In a church bulletin: This evening at 7 P.M. there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to become comfortable?-- Mia (Pulp Fiction)
When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."
Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.-- Liz Smith
"I have so many different personalities in me, and I still feel lonely."-- Tori Amos
The more sane often call themselves insane to avoid others' judgement.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.-- H. L. Mencken
All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.-- Steven Wright
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.-- Oscar Wilde
"Discretion is being able to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice."
"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."-- Robert Frost
The acceptable response to homosexuality is not "It's OK, it's not your choice," or, even, "It's OK, it is your choice," but rather, "So?"-- Amy Gorin
ADAPTABILITY:
Excellent: Walks on water
Good: Walks on water in emergencies
Average: Washes with water
Fair: Drinks water
Poor: Passes water in emergencies
Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.-- Tom Stoppard
The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.-- Jean Kerr
"What makes resisting temptation difficult, for many people, is that they don't want to discourage it completely."-- Franklin P. Jones
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")
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.-- Confucius
The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth.-- Albert Einstein
I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.-- John Donne
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."-- Theodore Rubin
There's no excuse for laziness, except for maybe if you've been in a real bad train accident, and had to have a large part of your brain removed.-- Lev L. Spiro
If the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when you run out of ink?
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.-- W. Somerset Maugham
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.-- Albert Einstein
The fewer clear facts you have in support of an opinion, the stronger your emotional attachment to that opinion.
"That's the trouble with women these days. They act like men and want to be treated like women" (An American in Paris)
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.-- Groucho Marx
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
"You are so lovely."
"Yes."
"Yes! And you take a compliment, too! I like that in a goddess."
"Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it."-- Jack Wagner
Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race -- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.-- Mark Twain ("The Mysterious Stranger")
(as The Spice Girls play in background)
"What are they doing?"
"Psychological warfare." (Small Soldiers)
"You have all eternity to be cautious in when you're dead."-- Lois Platford
My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for forty years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions.-- Elayne Boosler
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones.
Law of Cat Motion:
A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction.
Science is not a body of knowledge nor a system of belief; it is just a term which describes humankind’s incremental acquisition of understanding through observation. Science is awesome.-- Tim Minchin
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with RAISINS in it.-- Dorothy Parker
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.-- Albert Einstein
Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.-- Robert Green Ingersoll
"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
Any sufficiently optimistic statement is indistinguishable from sarcasm.
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.-- Alfred Adler
Bullshit, in contrast to mere nonsense, is something that implies, but does not contain, adequate meaning or truth.
And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords.-- Alan Watts
Dustin Pons, an American high-school student who attended a Soviet school for three weeks, as quoted in the New York Times: "American teenagers are more socially advanced. For instance, in their free time Soviets would rather read a book or walk in the park or play the piano. American teenagers would probably go out and watch TV, go to a movie, or something more actively inclined." ("The Progressive")
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)
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
"I wanted to make a little spot in the context of the record where there was this break in the action. In the midst of this buildup of these ever-growing, terrible machines, I just wanted to remember that there is somewhere... else."-- Trent Reznor
Sniglet, n: Any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"Until you meet an alien intelligence you will not know what it is to be human."
Scientists find wonder in everything, except extremely dull papers on quality assurance.
-- Telo (#xkcd)
The senior wizard in a world of magic had the same prospects of long-term employment as a pogo stick tester in a minefield.-- Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures)
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.-- Redd Foxx
There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.-- Oscar Wilde
...postmodernity, once the plaything of smarty-pants French guys, in truth belongs to the engagingly stupid. (Newsweek)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation.
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?-- Steven Wright
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
-- Mark Twain
"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."-- Oscar Wilde
"I became insane, with long instances of horrible sanity."-- Edgar Allen Poe
A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there. A theologian is the one who finds it.
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.-- Georges Clemenceau (1 December 1945)
"Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of."
On an American Airlines package of nuts: Instructions: Open package, eat nuts.
Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself.-- Potter Stewart
Reason, v.i: To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.-- Ambrose Bierce
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?-- Dick Cavett
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
-- Oscar Wilde
Creepy music coming from a cemetery should always be investigated more closely.
Love is like a fruit. It may look good, but you shouldn't bite in it until it's ripe.-- Nick Hertl
"The most merciful thing in the world...is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."-- H.P. Lovecraft
If you sat a monkey down in front of a keyboard, the first thing typed would be a UNIX command.-- Bill Lye
"Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world."-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"I'd like to meet the person who invented sex and see what they're working on now."
I'll say it again for the logic impaired.-- Larry Wall
Cigarette, n: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco inbetween.
Man in helicopter: Excuse me, where am I?
Passerby: You're in a helicopter about 20 ft. off the ground.
Man in helicopter: You must be in tech support.
Passerby: I am. How did you know?
Man in helicopter: Your answer was technically correct but completely useless.
Passerby: You must be a businessman.
Man in helicopter: I am. How did you know?
Passerby: Because you don't know where you are or where you need to go, but you expect me to be able to help. You're no worse off than you were before, but now you think it's my fault.
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.-- Edgar Allan Poe
Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: No one to blame.-- Erica Jong
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry.
Hence University education.-- George Bernard Shaw
Even if complaints about man-bashing in this film were 99% true, it still wouldn't make up for the years of portraying women as bimbos in movies.-- Geena Davis (about "Themla & Louise")
"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it."
"When you, the writer, integrate your own material in your psyche, it changes you forever. Some writers allow songs to come through them, but don't take it in, so they don't grow. If they don't let it bring up questions in their own beings, they're just translators."-- Tori Amos
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
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".-- Philip K. Dick
"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it."-- George Bernard Shaw
PROGRAM, n.: A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. v. tr.: To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.
Spirtle, n: The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.-- Albert Einstein
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.-- H. G. Wells
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."-- Nietzsche
A sufficiently optimistic statement is indistinguishable from social sycophancy.
A winning formula can be obliterated simply by the change to an ingorant new manager.
We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift - our personal association, which means so much to them - we give grudgingly.-- Mark Twain
Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding.-- Mahatma Gandhi
To in good days say "look what i've reached"
and on bad days say "why was this done to me"
..is mighty disproportionate.
Rule of Defactualization: Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."-- Walter Bagehot
Law of diminishing IQ:
The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group.
"Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words."-- Dorothy Parker
"Hey, this is terrific!" Zaphod said. "Someone down there is trying to kill us!"
"Terrific,' said Arthur.
"But don't you see what this means?"
"Yes. We are going to die."
"Yes, but apart from that."
"Apart from that?"
"It means we must be on to something!"
"How soon can we get off it?"-- Zaphod and Arthur in a certain death situation over Magrathea.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Especially Bob Dylan.-- Jim Rosenberg
Policeman: "You okay?"
Randolph: "I don't know, I'm sort of fucked up in general so it's hard to gauge" *faints* (Death to Smoochy)
The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.-- Harlan Ellison
Elbonics, n: The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see --
But microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.-- Emily Dickinson
"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn."-- David Russell
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."-- Kristian Wilson (Nintendo Inc. 1989)
Mary had a crypto key,
she kept it in escrow,
and everything that Mary said,
the Feds were sure to know.
"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."-- George Burns
Table Snorkeling (tay' bul snawrk' ling), n: Frantic gesticulations when one bites into hot food and has to take in air to cool it off.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
As the main says, it has yet to be proven intelligence has any survival value.
Whether it deserves some respect is another matter.
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
Vizzini: Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (The Princess Bride)
Thinking always of trying to do more brings a state of mind in which nothing seems impossible.-- Henry Ford
In a lecture on dairy physics: "We have on the left a spherical cow of uniform density, on the right is a spherical hay stack of uniform density. The two are separated by an infinite fence of infinitesimal thickness delta. Now, before looking at the governing relationships...let's make some assumptions."-- Alain Bouchard
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.
Boss, n.: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words 'boss' and 'botch' were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning 'a supervisor of workers' also meant 'an ornamental stud.'
"Who ever walked behind anyone to freedom? If we can't go hand in hand, I don't want to go."-- Hazel Scott
Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb-assassin to break the bulb in the first place.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
-- Josh Billings
Petonic (peh ton' ik), adj: One who is embarrassed to undress in front of a household pet.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Imagination, n: A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.-- Ambrose Bierce
"Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it." (Calvin & Hobbes)
When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.-- Albert Einstein
Mort isn't fashionable UK movie material -- there's no parts in it for Hugh or Emma, it's not set in Sheffield, and no one shoves drugs up their bum...-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
"Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock."-- New York Times
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.-- Terry Pratchett
"The imposition of stigma is the commonest form of violence used in democratic societies."-- R. A. Pinker
Law of Cat Landing:
A cat will always land in the softest place possible; often the mid-section of an unsuspecting, reclining human.
Motrin and espresso. The breakfast of champions.-- Sweet Poly
If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump to safety, but if you put that same frog in a pot of cold water and turn on the heat, it will stay and be scalded to death.-- Everett Dirksen
I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living.-- Lin Yutang
"The BBC is like a sausage machine: whatever you put in one end, you get Dr. Who out the other".-- Neil Gaiman
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."-- Donald E. Knuth
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
The more things change, the more they stay insane.-- Tom Weller
Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.-- John LeCarre
"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
Knowledge is often mistaken for intelligence. This is like mistaking a cup of milk for a cow.
You see, the conditional modifers depend on certain variables like the day of the week, the number of players, chair positions, things like that. [...] There can't be more than a dozen or two that are pertinent.-- Robert Asprin ("Little Myth Marker")
The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done so far, has created problems we cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them.-- Albert Einstein
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts -- not the facts themselves.-- Cohen's Law
"Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a police record. I said 'no, but I have the new Devo album'. Cops have no sense of humor."
If the brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.
"Programming graphics in X is like finding the square root of PI using Roman numerals."-- Henry Spencer
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff.-- Peter de Vries
Come, let us retract the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.
"Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you." (Cheers)
"Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders."-- Sloan Wilson
She wanted a holiday in Australia, she said, and if I turned it into work she'd hit me--so I gave in, because I did not want to be beaten about the Bush.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
...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?"
See my big frustration here is that my main squeeze has turned out to be a Late Blooming Nerd, and is in the habit of (in the midst of cuddling) saying sweet things like "you think if I disable the caching it would work?"-- Ro Reid
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.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.-- Oscar Wilde
Arthur C. Clarke's Law :
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best".-- H. Allen Smith
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."-- Edmund Burke
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
Aardvark: Like an anteater, but harder to spell, the aardvark hangs around South American locations getting to know the local ant population, and attempting genocide on them. Well recognised for its long snout, with which it sucks up said unfortunate ants, the aardvark is best known for that bit in Tintin where it cleans up Captain Haddock's face. The Aardvark was originally named by Spanish Explorer Aaron Varkinos in 1533. [See also: Ant]-- Daniel Bowen (Toxic Custarpedia)
For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.-- Carlos Casteneda
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.-- Homer Simpson
"I know what I don't believe in. I know what I've rejected. But I'm not sure what I do believe in."-- Trent Reznor
"With increased knowledge comes an increased capacity for pain. So if ignorance is bliss, enlightenment must be pure hell."-- Darien Fawkes (The Invisible Man)
"A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us."-- Franz Kafka
Talk to your kids about sex. Tell them just how absolutely incredible it really is. (The Covert Comic)
In a cemetery:
"Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves."
"Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ..."
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be."-- Douglas Adams
"Professor Plum, you were once a professor in Psychiatry, specializing in helping paranoid and homocidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur."
"Yes, but now I work for the United Nations."
"So, your work has not changed..." (Clue)
"Television has lifted the manufacture of banality out of the sphere of handicraft and placed it in that of a major industry."-- Nathalie Sarraute
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.-- Carl Sagan
"Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one."-- James Madison
"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection."-- Sidney Poitier
Just about all real intellectual activity starts from the understanding that *there is a problem here*, especially in things we take for granted.-- Arnold Zwicky
A collaborative project: one in which individuals participate voluntarily, cooperate freely, rotate authorship seniority and disagree amicably, working on projects of no forseeable use to anyone.
"Politics is the entertainment branch of industry."-- Frank Zappa
"It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'as pretty as an airport' exist."-- Douglas Adams
"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."
"In corporate religions as in others, the heretic must be cast out not because of the probability that he is wrong but because of the possibility that he is right."-- Antony Jay
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.-- Franz Kafka
"To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be."-- Anna Louise Strong
Insanity, a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.-- R. D. Lang
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
Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.
Daria: I believe in coffee, coffee for everyone. But I don't want to sell chocolate anymore. It makes me feel dirty.
Jane: The bad kind of dirty. (Daria)
Love me or hate me, but spare me your indifference.-- Libbie Fudim
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
"I do actually believe in love. I can't say that I'm 100 percent successful in that department, but I think it's one of the few worthwhile human experiences. It's cooler than anything I can think of right now."-- Trent Reznor
"Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth."-- Mark Van Doren
Mom, romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, then sold off piece by piece.-- Lisa (The Simpsons)
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
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.-- Robert Frost
"In all our searching, the only thing we found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other" (Contact)
"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
"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
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
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.-- Woody Allen
[Perl] isn't a programming language, it's a thousand special case rules flying in close formation.-- Peter da Silva
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
"I read somewhere that 77% of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23% who are apparently doing quite well for themselves."-- Jerry Garcia
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
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.-- Solomon Short
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.-- Tom Szasz
We're not into science fiction because it's good literature, we're into it because it's weird. Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, "woo the muse of the odd."-- Bruce Sterling
In a nonsmoking area:
"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
"If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
"Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.-- Charles Darwin
In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.-- Albert Camus
It says a lot about the US when they ban lawn darts but you can still buy semi-automatic weapons in a department store.-- Brian Manz
"Paper has a genius for multiplication that cannot be equalled anywhere else in nature."-- Hugh Keenleyside
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."-- Thomas A. Edison
What do you mean, "If a woodchuck could chuck wood"? What's the point in calling it a "woodchuck" if it can't ?-- David Gunter
Critics think that things should be done in good taste. Most people think that things should just taste good.-- Gene Simmons
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.-- Albert Camus
For years a secret shame destroyed my peace --
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.-- Justin Richardson
"I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild."-- Keats
Mustard: Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?
Wadsworth: You don't need any help from me, sir.
Mustard: That's right! (Clue)
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.-- H. L. Mencken
"Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do."-- Paul Graham
Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.-- Sam Harris
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.-- Mark Twain
The world, especially for the middle and upper classes, is much more fool-proof then it used to be. A fool-proof environment causes an increase in the number of fools.-- Hillel Gazit
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.-- Helen Keller
'Anything that happens, happens'
'Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.'
'Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.'
'It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.'-- Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.-- David H. Comins
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."-- Voltaire
A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength."
"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
"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)
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.-- Susan Sontag
When someone mentions "the City" in my presence, I usually interpret it to mean exciting Charlton, Ontario (pop. 200, including cows). Anyone who uses expressions so vague deserves to be misinterpreted on a biblical scale.-- Brian Jarvis
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart...
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.-- Carl Jung
I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain.-- Carol Leifer
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.-- Ashleigh Brilliant
If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?-- Will Rogers
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in.-- Bradley's Bromide
Nobody's creepy from the inside, Hazel. Some of them are sad, and some of them hurt, and some of them think they're the only real thing in the whole world. But they're not creepy.-- Neil Gaiman
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."-- Hermann Goering (at the Nuremberg Trials, April 18, 1946)
"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good."
-- Vaclav Havel
To some extent any use of language (and conceptual categories) distorts reality by coercing instances into types.-- Rob Bernardo
Law of Cat Inertia:
A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force - such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby scurrying mouse.
On applause: They named it Ovation from the Latin ovis, a sheep.-- Plutarch
"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."
-- H. L. Mencken
"We say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in an obscure and distant future. It does not occur to us that it can have any connection with the day already begun, or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance".
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.-- Rita Mae Brown
"I find imperfection the most interesting thing about a person"-- Jodi Foster
"This site is intended for people over 18, but only because kids shoot each other if they hear the word 'fuck'."
Future: That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.-- Ambrose Bierce
"Doesn't anyone remember one of the biggest problems the Super Conducting Super Collider project ran into during construction in Texas? It wasn't politics... It was the Mecca of fire ants in all the extremely high-voltage conduits, junctions, transformers, and other high-strength field areas. The ants would eat the insulating compounds off and sit there basking in the emf high they apparently got. Occasionally, an ant would offer itself as sacrifice, prompting some Damn Big Breakers to blow..." -- RISKS
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
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.-- Kurt Vonnegut Jr
He believes in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man who does not understand them.-- George Bernard Shaw
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while, you realise the pig is enjoying it.-- Jamie Lawrence
A BBC correspondent, reporting on plans to build a McDonalds amidst ancient Roman ruins: 'To really get into the spirit of Pompeii, the restaurant would have to be buried in volcanic ash. And if you ask me, that's not a bad idea.'
Dread Pirate Roberts: "You guessed wrong."
Vizzini: "You only THINK I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses while your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell for one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha -" (Vizzini drops dead.) (Princess Bride)
VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count to ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of that old underwear you own.