1271 hits
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
The voters have spoken, the bastards...
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.-- Goethe
Microsoft: Re-inventing the square wheel.
We shame outselves for the sake of simplicity.
Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
we make happen the stuff we fear will happen
I think it's a beautiful day to go to the zoo and feed the ducks.
To the lions.-- Brian Kantor (the SDM)
"Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away."-- Goethe
"Must... defy... laws... of... physics!"-- The Tick
I like the kind of people that can hold on to the the feeling they have after the song or movie ends.
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
The skin of civilization is only 7 meals thick
I'd love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code.
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
Television: the bland leading the bland.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.-- Goethe
Lecture, n: Where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one.
"If angst were a popsicle, I'd be suckin' the stick."
Music soothes the savage beast. ...unless it's polka.
Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself.-- Plato
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"
Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its de-evolution into the shiny things network.-- The Onion
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
"Conviction is a luxury for those on the sidelines."
A dark past creates a long path back to the surface.
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.-- Goethe
The law should make men free. The problem is making the law free.
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
PMS, n: the short period of time when women act like men do all the time.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Funny. All the wireless people seem to be the marionettes.
The future exists first in the imagination, then in the will, then in reality.
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
Adolescence, n: The stage between puberty and adultery.
"Remember the Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules."
"The first 80% of software development is the easy part. The hard part is the next 80%"
If the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when you run out of ink?
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
If the pen is mightier than the sword then how can actions speak louder than words?
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.-- Steven Wright
The BEST part of waking up? Hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep.
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
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished."-- Goethe
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.
Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A: To get to the other slide.
2, 3, 3, 37 - the prime factorization of the beast.
Life is like a dog-sled team; If you ain't the lead dog, the scene never changes.
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.
The applied mathematician can find the solution to any difficulty, whilst the pure mathematician can find the difficulty to any solution.
Five-step methods are the surest sign of an uninspired plan.
Monday is the root of all evil.
And the pickles frolicked with the waffles, joyously.
"Making the simple complicated is easy. Making the complicated simple is brilliant."
Make the most of yourself, because that's all the self you are going to get, buster.
Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.
The sooner you start to code, the longer the program will take.-- Roy Carlson
Stenderup's law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.
The more we disagree, the bigger the chance that at least one of us is right.
"News" is just the stuff they use to fill up all the empty space they couldn't sell for advertising.
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
Insecurity is comparing our behind the scenes to others highlight reel.
"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."
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
Gina: "Isn't it customary for the suspect to leave the scene of the crime?"
Debra: "Definitely an amateur" (Empire Records)
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, let the machine get it.
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
"I think all the boys that write the screaming stuff would write the best love songs... because they have the most to hide. The guys that are in the most pain are usually the ones with the biggest hearts."-- Tori Amos
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.
All New: The software is not compatible with any previous version.
The problem with reality is the lack of background music.
Only the good die young. Note the average age in Congress.
The light at the end of a tunnel may be an oncoming train.
"The thing that I'm into is the philosophy of the music. I love the surprise of things, the accidents--just the sound of a word, to try to express them in the best way, so that the emotion is totally revealed."-- Beth Gibbons
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
Beware the fury of a patient woman.
"I'm not mad at the world... just at all the people in it."
The sweetest of all sounds is praise.-- Xenophon
Sometimes you have more perspective than the situation, sometimes the situation has more perspective than you.
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
He who laughs last found the dirty meaning.
I once talked a guy out of blowing up the Sears tower, but I can't talk my wife out of the bathroom or my daughter off the phone. (The Negotiator)
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
The future ain't what it used to be.
The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.-- Robert A. Heinlein
On the sexes:
Brains times Beauty times Availability = Constant.
"The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."-- Henrik Ibsen
Accuracy, n: The vice of being right.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
Eiffel Tower: The Empire State Building after taxes.
The sun is like breasts - risky to look at unless you've got sunglasses.
Proof by omission: The reader may easily supply the details. The other 253 cases are analogous.
The rich aren't like us, they pay less taxes.
"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
"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
Domestication is the enemy of romance.
The truth is not decided by democracy.
We accept the love we think we deserve
Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.-- The Register
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
"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 more sane often call themselves insane to avoid others' judgement.
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't make eight cats pull a sled through the snow.
"Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world."-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Join the army: meet interesting people, then kill them.
"Play with each other. Play with yourselves. Just don't play with the squirrels, they bite."
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
"To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love."-- George Santayana
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
The music is the magic carpet that the other things take naps on.-- Tori Amos
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 secret of happiness is not getting what you want but wanting what you get.
"One good turn gets most of the blankets"
Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.
Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table.-- The Anarchist Cookbook
In order to become the master the politician poses as the servant.-- Charles De Gaulle
Renning's Maxim: Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.
"Bother," said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
"Geologists know how to make the bedrock."
Occam's eraser: The philosophical principle that even the simplest solution is bound to have something wrong with it.
Aftermath, n: The period following algebra.
I get my kicks above the .sigline, Sunshine
The chance of a lifetime is to be yourself.
The only rose without thorns is friendship.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.-- Oscar Wilde
Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent.
The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down.
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.-- Franz Kafka
If it wasn't for the optimist the pessimist would never know how happy he isn't.
Pedaeration, n: Achieving the perfect body heat by having one leg under the sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Bozone, n: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.
The fewer clear facts you have in support of an opinion, the stronger your emotional attachment to that opinion.
The reward for a job well done is more work.
Piety, n: Reverence for the Supreme Being, based on His supposed resemblance to man.
No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.-- Henry Kissinger
"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
The Pet Principle:
No matter which side of the door your dog or cat is on, it is the wrong side.
Politicians should be changed frequently, like diapers - and for much the same reason.
Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete.
The loom works perfectly well without the steam powered wig darner and shortbread cutter stapled to the side.-- Peter da Silva
Cashtration, n.: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
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
He was just... well, like a lot of madmen. Somewhat accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution. (Kid Radd)
"Well, to be fair I did have a couple of gadgets he probably didn't, like a teaspoon and an open mind."-- The Doctor
Advisor: The guy who told you how to screw up.
Idle hands are the air guitar's playground (Alas)
"Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together."-- Anais Nin
TCP_UP - The 16-bit TCP Urgent Pointer, encoded as the hex representation of the value of the field. The hex string MUST be capitalized since it is urgent. (RFC 3093)
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."-- Mark Twain
He who laughs last probably didn't understand the joke.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.-- Gandhi
How do you know if honesty is the best policy unless you've tried some of the others?
The older I get, the more I think you ever learn is either further subtleties, or further distractions.
"Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom."-- Eric S. Raymond
Quantum mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
Be the person you needed when you were younger.
"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.-- Steven Wright
"Alcohol is the cause and the solution to many of life's problems."-- Homer Simpson
"The biggest disease today isn't leprosy or tuberculosis, but the feeling of being unwanted."-- Mother Theresa
"To describe the beating of Egg Whites is almost as cheeky as advising how to lead a happy life."-- The Joy of Cooking
Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.
Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
It is a good thing to in your mind be able to seperate the artist from the art.
There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.-- Benjamin Dana
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
Two guys walked into a bar. The third one ducked.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: `
If the mind were exercised as much as the mouth, we would be a race of geniuses.
Pedestrian, n: The variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff.-- Peter de Vries
"There is nothing wrong with the software that rm won't cure."-- Arnie Romo
The more things change, the more they stay insane.-- Tom Weller
You're probably the sort who would have Dorothy arrested for throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West.-- Eric Holeman
Patageometry, n: The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant under brain transplants.
Adultery - two wrong people doing the right thing.
Guru, n: A computer owner who can read the manual.
pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Life is cheap. It's the accessories that kill you.
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.
Men are like parking spaces: the good ones are taken and the rest are handicapped.
"So you want a realistic, down-to-earth show that's off-the-wall and full of magical robots?" (The Simpsons)
Alimony: the fee a woman charges for name-dropping.
"Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot."
Study the past, if you would divine the future.-- Confucius
Democracy is the form of government where everyone gets what the majority deserves.
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.-- Voltaire
"The great tragedy of science, the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."-- Aldous Huxley
There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.
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
Kisses are like tears. The only ones that are real are the ones you can't hold back.
The singing wasn't particularly good. The only word the singer appeared to know was "la," but she was making it work hard.-- Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella,
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
"Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog."
"...the only place for 63,000 bugs is a rain forest"
Adventure: The land between entertainment and panic.
The intensity comes from meaning, not from extremes.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.-- Henry David Thoreau
Descartes described how his father taught him how to swim by throwing him into the Seine: "I sink, therefore I swam."
Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.-- Morticia Adams
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.-- Anais Nin
It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men.-- Mae West
The principle difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought"-- Basho
"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."-- G. K. Chesterton
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 guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.-- Lyndon B Johnson
Music is the science of manipulating emotion through sound.-- Angus Gray
"Love makes you do the wacky"-- Willow
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
"And the heat goes on... where the hand has been."-- Byrne/Eno
Even if you're paranoid, maybe the guy with the chainsaw really is after you.
The way some people find fault, you'd think there was a reward.
"They are wrong who say that love is blind. On the contrary, nothing - not even the smallest detail - escapes the eyes; one sees everything in the loved one, notices everything; but melts it all into one flame with the great and simple: �I love you.�"
"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)
The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement.
"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
"Mobile phones are the only subject on which men boast about who's got the smallest."-- Neil Kinnock
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
-- Josh Billings
I wouldn't touch the Metric System with a 3.048m pole.
Never send a monster to do the work of an evil genius.
Never underestimate the falseness of a generalisation.
The only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes.
"They call him the Sand Spider"
"Why do they call him that?"
"Probably because it sounds scary." (True Lies)
"She says control it, then she says don't control it, then she says you're controlling the way she makes you crawl."-- Tori Amos ("She's Your Cocaine")
Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous?
A: A canary with the super-user password.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.-- Oscar Wilde
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.-- Tommy Smothers
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.-- Oscar Wilde
"You ever hear of the Spartans, Lewis? Ancient Greece...traditional enemies of the Athenians? They were a warrior society. I'll try to make it simple for you...they were Klingon." (The Rhipodon Society)
"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
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
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.
The BeOS takes the best features from the major operating systems. It's got the power and flexibility of Unix, the interface and ease of use of the MacOS, and Minesweeper from Windows.-- Tyler Riti
The best way to get rid of worries is to let them die of neglect.
I want to die like my grandfather, peaceful and in my sleep - not screaming like the other people in the car.
"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd everytime, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."-- Orson Scott Card
The value of the Constitution depends on the good will of government itself. If the Supreme Court rules that the Bill of Rights should not interfere with the important business of government (which they have done on at least two occasions), then the Constitution is meaningless.-- John Kormylo
Great Lover, n: A man who can breathe through his ears.
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.-- Albert Einstein
"Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth."-- Mark Van Doren
God, as some cynic has said, is always on the side which has the best football coach.-- Heywood Broun
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.-- Aldous Huxley
The phrase *I* like is: "Code as if the next guy to read it is a raving psychopath who knows where you live."
Following that by passing out a sheet asking them to list their names and addresses is optional, but recommended.
-- improving code quality - lessons from the SDM
God must love assholes--she made so many of them.
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
"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."-- Friedrick Nietzsche
The best way to accelerate hardware is at 9.8 m/sec/sec.
The Four Food Groups: Coffee, ice cream, beer and pizza.
Government of the people
By a corrupt subset of the people
For the people who can afford the corrupt subset of the people.
-- Chris Newport
Law of Cat Landing:
A cat will always land in the softest place possible; often the mid-section of an unsuspecting, reclining human.
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation.
If there is no such thing as justice then the best we can hope for is revenge
"Sometimes the need to mess with their heads outweighs the millstone of humiliation."-- Fox Mulder (The X-Files)
Teacher's First Law of Grading Lab Papers: If an experiment has perfect results, the student has cheated.
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.-- La Bruyere
Deja moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
It's a joke. Like the funny kind, but different.
"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'"-- Dave Barry
"The most merciful thing in the world...is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."-- H.P. Lovecraft
(as The Spice Girls play in background)
"What are they doing?"
"Psychological warfare." (Small Soldiers)
"In all our searching, the only thing we found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other" (Contact)
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."-- Groucho Marx
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.-- H. L. Mencken
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.-- Steven Wright
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.
"Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind."-- Terry Pratchett
Destinesia: The act of entering a room and forgetting why.
There are two ways spreading the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.-- Edith Wharton
If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh.
The guests giggled, and floated down to the bottom of the garden to inspect the herbaceous borders, and snatch a quick snog before the crudities.-- Stephen Foster
"The stone age was marked by man's clever use of crude tools; the information age, to date, has been marked by man's crude use of clever tools."
Whoever said women don't like porn just isn't talking to the right women. Or showing them the right porn.
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts -- not the facts themselves.-- Cohen's Law
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."-- Phillips Brooks
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?-- Dick Cavett
Answer the phone naked. Callers will hear it in your voice.
Nowadays, originality is the art of concealing your source.
The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize. (Steel Magnolias)
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."-- Hemingway
The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows that the average man can see much better than he can think. (Ladies' Home Journal)
If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
Lunatic Asylum, n: The place where optimism most flourishes.
No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.
Politics is storytelling. We just pick the one we like best.
The Two Rules of Success: 1. Don't tell everything you know.
"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy."
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
The goodness of morals depends upon what the morals say, not just the fact that they are morals.-- Rob Bernardo
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
The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.-- Clarence Darrow
"Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.-- Spiro T. Agnew
"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
The Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.-- H. L. Mencken
"My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful."-- Hermann Weyl
"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."
The state doesn't do what I tell it to do, which is fair, because I don't do what the state tells me to do.-- Desmodus Rotundus
The public seems incapable of distinguishing between your garden variety idiot and your genuine lunatic. It is the same confusion the public has had over the last five Presidents.-- Mark Leeper
"If hackers ran the world, there'd be no war. Lots of accidents, maybe."
Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists.
"Television has lifted the manufacture of banality out of the sphere of handicraft and placed it in that of a major industry."-- Nathalie Sarraute
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."-- Oscar Wilde
"Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex."-- Oscar Wilde
"The shortest distance between two points is under construction."-- Noelie Alito
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.
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties.
The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without elevation at his or her option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership.
Always behave like a duck: keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.-- Jacob Braude
Selfish, adj.: Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.-- Ambrose Bierce
A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.-- Elbert Hubbard
Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it's the scenic route.-- Steven Wright
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
More to be feared than ignorance is the pretense of knowledge.
Things written above an urinal: 'The future is in your hands!'
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
This must be morning. I never could get the hang of mornings.
If the brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Kinky is when you use the whole chicken.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.-- Ed Howe
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.
"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
If a tree falls in a forest and lands on a politician, even if you can't hear the tree or the screams, I'll bet you'd at least hear the applause.-- Paul Tindale
"Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road."-- Stewart Brand
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
Reason, v.i: To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.-- Ambrose Bierce
"The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness."-- Eric Sevareid
Sir: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Andrew: One does not know, Sir. Possibly a predator was behind the chicken, or possibly there was a female chicken on the other side of the road if it was a male chicken; possibly a food source, or, depending on the season, it might be migrating. One hopes there's no traffic.
Sir: To get to the other side.
Andrew: "To get to the other side." Ah. Why is that funny? (Bicentennial Man)
The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."-- Maugham
Never underestimate the human capacity for cognitive dissonance.
The definition of easy work is work that someone else has to do.
"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 ..."
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
I'm an apatheist. The question is no longer interesting, and the answer no longer matters.-- petro (a.s.r)
"When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-- Thomas Jefferson
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
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
If you can't take the heat, don't tickle the dragon.-- Scott Fahlman
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.-- Susan Sontag
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.-- Paul Beatty
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
The course of true love never did run smooth.-- Shakespeare
"The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."-- P. B. Medawar
The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had my life to live again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.-- Tallulah Bankhead
Decafalon, n.: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
X.400 is the mail system of the future, and I hope it stays that way.-- Erik Fair
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.
Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.-- Mike Adams
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was tautology."-- Mark Twain
I'm extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Oh yeah? You wanna step out of the giant robot and say that again?
"The I.S.O. standard unit of female pulchritude is the milli-Helen. This is the amount of beauty capable of causing the launching of a single ship."-- Terry Pratchett
The fact that I know I'm often a fool, but that I also have an IQ a fair bit over a hundred, scares me. What fools the rest of the world must be.
I do not like the man: he has all of the virtues I detest and none of the vices I admire.-- Winston Churchill
"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
Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.
Who cares whether the glass is half full or half empty? Shouldn't the question be who's been drinking out of my glass?
"God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New--the Jekyll and Hyde of sacred romance."-- Mark Twain
Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have trained for years and years can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
"The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me."-- George Bernard Shaw
"I'm the Queen of the nerds. I love nerds- by which I mean, not a cool, bitchin' person. I guess I was a cool nerd. I wasn't shuffling my feet in the corner of the playground, I was the homecoming queen, but then, all the nerds voted for me."-- Tori Amos
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?-- Paul Simon
"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
"If houses were built the way software is built,
the first woodpecker would bring down civilization."
"I like to go to the beach and bury metal objects that say 'get a life' on them"
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I've come to realize there is a very close resemblance to the first.-- Ronald Reagan
'Mundus vult decipi'
(the world wants to be deceived)
"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?"
Science is the belief that we don't need belief to know most things.
Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline sharply the minute they start waving guns around?-- Dr. Who
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)
"She who has the biggest sword gets to be the biggest bitch."-- Kymberli Morris
"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."-- Oscar Wilde
"*snort* I'm waiting for the day when people realise that mainstream is a subset of SF without the speculation..."-- Emmet O'Brien
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed."-- Mark Twain
"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."-- Herbert Hoover
"The worst thing about censorship is [deleted by censorship bereau]."
Being in a nudist colony probably takes all the fun out of Halloween.
You're just jealous because the voices are talking to me and not you.
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."-- Theodore Rubin
Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.-- E. B. White
"Question Authority. They usually know where the bathroom is."-- Daria
"The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender."-- Emil Ludwig
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)
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."-- Anatole France
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
"Success consists of doing the common things of life uncommonly well."
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
Indifference is the key when dealing with a narcissistic megalomaniac.
Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
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
did you know that in McDonaldland, you can get a license to hamburgle? It's true, the Hamburgler actually pays Grimace the purple guy for the same hamburgers he burgles, just for the opportunity to steal them for sport. He's neither a criminal nor an anarchist, he's a sycophant to the clown plutocracy.-- puddle (#xkcd)
I find "Yes, you _can_ do it that way, but the rest of the Internet community will point at you and giggle", followed by my walking out in a flurry of RFCs, tends to be quite effective-- Tanuki the Raccoon-Dog (a.s.r.)
The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything. Oops. No, that's not what I meant to say.-- Joel Spolsky
Anticiparcellate (an ti si par' sel ate), v: Waiting until the mailman is several houses down the street before picking up the mail, so as not too appear too anxious.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"I'd like to meet the person who invented sex and see what they're working on now."
Never run from anything immortal. It only attracts their attention. (The Last Unicorn)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.-- George Bernard Shaw
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)
Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego.
If you're not part of the freaks, you're part of the boredom.-- Perry Farrell
The default Magic Word, Abracadabra, actually is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase ha-Bracha dab'ra which means "pronounce the blessing".
"I wish I could drink like a lady
I can take one or two at the most.
Three and I'm under the table --
Four and I'm under the host!"
Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.-- Bertrand Russell
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.-- Mark Twain
"Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them."
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."-- Nietzsche
"They say necessity is the mother of invention. And when the necessity is survival, she can be one mean mother. Of course, it's her child, invention, who's the real dangerous one."-- Darien Fawkes (The Invisible Man)
"The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood."-- George Bernard Shaw
Seeing is forgetting the name of that which one sees.-- Paul Valery
Please do not duck the next time the clue-by-four swings your way.-- Ben Browning
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.-- George Bernard Shaw
The truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you angry.
"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell."
Brought to you by the people who made "out of context" a household word.
C++, the language in which only friends can access your private members.
"Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being."-- John Updike
America was founded by drug smugglers -- rum was the drug, but smugglers nonetheless.
Cigarette, n: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco inbetween.
"They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck."
"What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary."-- Richard Harkness
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.-- George Bernard Shaw
Use the best: Linux for servers, Mac for graphics, Windows for Solitaire.
...postmodernity, once the plaything of smarty-pants French guys, in truth belongs to the engagingly stupid. (Newsweek)
"The way I play is a bit torturous but... it's the only way I know how to play."-- Tori Amos
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."-- Voltaire
Q: Why did the astrophysicist order three hamburgers?
A: Because he was hungry.
Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.-- Augustine
Stretch pants - the garment that made skiing a spectator sport.-- Anonymous
"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."-- Lucille Ball
What is wanted is not the will to believe but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.-- Bertrand Russell
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
The problem isn't that the victim can't fight, the problem is that they have to. Saying that self-defense classes are the answer to gay bashers is like saying that it would be good if the government stopped prosecuting rape cases and used the money saved to hand out free mace.-- Richard Caley
The liberal does not hope for a better world, because liberal ideology already that this is the best world it can be.
"The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions."-- Susan Sontag
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.-- Emerson
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.-- Steven Wright
"For flavor, instant sex will never supercede the stuff you have to peel and cook."-- Quentin Crisp
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")
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.-- Mary Pickford
Bathquake, n: The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water faucet is turned on to a certain point.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
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
The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.-- Alan Ashley-Pitt
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")
"We are at times too ready to believe that the present is the only possible state of things."-- Marcel Proust
Conservative: a man who believes nothing should be done for the first time.
Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule.-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Education is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.-- Pete Seeger
"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
"Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much."
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 beasts of the field and fowls of the air did know Ridcully the Brown. They'd got so good at pattern-recognition that, for a radius of about twenty miles around the Ridcully estates, they'd run, hide or in desperate cases attack violently at the mere sight of a pointy hat.-- Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures)
“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
Law of Hydrodynamics: When a body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.
Adult: A person that has stopped growing at both ends but not in the middle.
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.-- Ambassador Kosh
There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?', `Why do they die?', `Why do they spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?' (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
The next time you feel like downloading 'The Little Engine That Could' into a weapon of mass destruction: Don't.
The weirder you are, the better you have to be if you still want to get paid.-- Ben Aveling
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
-- Oscar Wilde
"Programming graphics in X is like finding the square root of PI using Roman numerals."-- Henry Spencer
What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.-- Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers (1966))
Humor is just another defense against the universe-- Mel Brooks
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
Auntie Em--Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog.-- Dorothy
"In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the dead."-- Mark Twain
Choconiverous, adj: Biting off the head of the chocolate Easter bunny first.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.-- Jules Renord
"The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums."-- Peter De Vries
"Everything is convention, including law. When it is not the thought that led to the convention, but just the records of the convention that define morals, structural ethics are too dependant, and likely doomed."
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)
The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.-- Robert Frost
The question is not so much whether there is life on Mars as whether it will continue to be possible to live on Earth.
�...Because the establishment never gets it. That�s how it is with paradigm shift. The establishment does not see where the next wave is coming from. And even if they hire someone to tell them where the next wave is coming from, they never believe them.�-- Ted Nelson
People must think I'm a mushroom. They constantly keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
"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)
"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
"Here's a horrible thought: You know how dumb the average person is? Well, half the human race is even dumber than that..."
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.-- Mark Twain
"The Hindenburg crash had 62 survivors and 35 fatalities. Of the 35 deaths, 27 resulting from jumping from the airship. Many of the remaining 8 deaths resulted from burns and injuries due to the ensuing diesel fuel fire."-- Dan Egnor
I'm sick of tattoos, sick of piercings, sick of temporary tattoos. They are the white stilettos of the '90s.-- Shirley Manson
The good critic is he who narrates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.-- Anatole France
The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers.
I always used to wonder why the pope wore drag.
-- Tom Farrell
Who cares, as long as he looks faaabulous?!-- Gene Smith
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."-- Winston Churchill
WARNING:
Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war.
"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."
"As long as the music's loud enough, we won't hear the world falling apart."-- Derek Jarman
The two women exchanged the kind of glance women use when no knife is handy.-- Ellery Queen
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.-- H. L. Mencken
And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.-- Terry Pratchett (Night Watch)
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.-- Andre Gide
"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)."
Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.-- Kipling
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.-- Niels Bohr
"If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat."-- Mark Twain
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.
The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.-- Nathaniel Hawthorne
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
Yakko: So we should go?
Picasso: Oui, oui.
Yakko: Pardon?
Picasso: Oui, oui.
Yakko: The stuff they're getting away with on kid's shows these days... (Animaniacs)
Democracy according to the NRA: Firearms are necessary to protect individual liberties; most of all the right to own firearms.
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.-- Horace Walpole
...problems continue in the South African black townships. Four people were killed in violent clashes yesterday. A black spokesman said - this situation is a tragedy for our people; we get no help from the government; blacks are dying and all the whites can do is talk about cricket. [very brief pause] last night at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the South African cricket team defeated Australia in the day-night match... (A(ustralian)BC-FM news)
Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine.
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
All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.-- Noam Chomsky
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.-- Abraham Lincoln
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.-- Andy Tanenbaum
"The more I watch television, the more I wonder why I'm not already supreme ruler of Earth."-- Dogbert (Dilbert)
"There's nothing like desire to prevent the things one says from having any resemblance to the things in one's mind."-- Marcel Proust
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.-- Susan Sontag
"To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day."
-- Winston Churchill
Manners are one of the truly lost causes.-- John Simon
I'll say it again for the logic impaired.-- Larry Wall
"To live outside the law you must be honest."-- Bob Dylan
Behaviorism is the art of pulling habits out of rats.-- O'Neill
"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."-- Bertrand Russell
"The computer world is like a great big toy store. But all the toys are broken."-- Steve Witham
The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.-- Harlan Ellison
The primary difference between a man and a woman is that a man gets his self-esteem when a woman says "yes" and a woman gets hers when she says "no". (Amy's Orgasm)
"Pity the educated cynics who refuse to enjoy the fun, choosing instead to remain faithful to their numb anguish. Mourn for the humorless devotees who refuse to join in the juicy unpredictable game so that they might feed their spiritual greed, pretzeled up motionless on prayer mats with the torment of grave meditations. Have compassion for the imagination-dead heroes who cling so tightly to the masks they've forged for themselves that they're dead to the delight of molting."-- Rob Brezsny
98% of us Americans are hard-working people. It's the other 2% that give us a bad reputation. Then again, we did elect them.
As the cheetah said to the chameleon:
You can hide, but you can't run!-- Alan Williams
Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.-- Bill Bulko
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, your're overdoing it.-- J. Jenkins
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.-- Oscar Levant
Arithmetic: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
"All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies [government by the masses] are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people."-- Oscar Wilde
"Ergotism is what you get if you overuse the word "therefore". Egotism on the other hand is a form of "I" strain."-- Paul Martin
Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he would spend two years campaigning and organizing for it should not be trusted with the office.
Well, there's a quantum computer that can factor [the number] 15, so those of you using 4-bit RSA should worry.-- Bruce Schneier
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.
"No man chooses evil because it is evil;
he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks."-- Mary Wollstonecraft
Maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be. The door always must be left unlocked.
Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.
Do not go gentle into that good night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.-- Dylan Thomas
"Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews."-- John Updike
"This site is intended for people over 18, but only because kids shoot each other if they hear the word 'fuck'."
"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection."-- Sidney Poitier
The advantage of emotions is that they lead us astray.-- Oscar Wilde
"One of the CIA's few endearing traits is its penchant for making headlines. It is the world's most fully headlined secret agency."
"Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven't yet figured out how to ask."-- Fox Mulder (The X Files)
"I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course - the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end."-- Douglas Adams
"The degree of normality in a database is inversely proportional to that of its DBA"
On-line, adj: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
"Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"-- Ayn Rand
"Make lots of money", "enjoy the work", "operate within the law": choose 2-- Brian Anderson
A man said to the universe, "Sir, I exist."
"However," replied the universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."-- Stephan Crane ("War is Kind," 1899)
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.
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.
The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars.-- Gustave Flaubert
"If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity."
Absent, adj: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered.
A winning formula can be obliterated simply by the change to an ingorant new manager.
Be careful of the closeness of the signs lunch and lesbian. If you sign, "I'm hungry, let's eat lesbians", you should be sure that's what you meant.-- Steve Eastman
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.-- Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
"That's the trouble with women these days. They act like men and want to be treated like women" (An American in Paris)
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."-- Friedrich Nietzsche
'The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it.'
(Ford making his way out of Milliways whilst under the influence of enough alchol to make a rhino sing) (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture"-- Bumper sticker
"The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions."-- Maurice Chapelain
I think the strangest (or, perhaps, at least the most inappropriate) conversation I've ever had during sex with anyone was a long discussion (punctuated by the obvious noises) of analytic means of setting a bound on the primality of generalised Fibonacci numbers.-- Kay Dekker
"The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience."
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.-- James Branch Cabell
Talk to your kids about sex. Tell them just how absolutely incredible it really is. (The Covert Comic)
"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)
Jason squared his shoulders, drew the Sword of - I couldn't give a toss what it's supposed to be called, he said to himself, I shall call it Freckles - and took one step forward.-- Tom Holt ("Ye Gods!")
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 past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.-- Mark Twain
Sign in a hotel elevator in Paris:
"Please leave your values at the front desk."
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.-- Tom Szasz
The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world.
"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
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 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
If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.-- Robert Cringely ("InfoWorld")
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
He believes in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man who does not understand them.-- George Bernard Shaw
Motrin and espresso. The breakfast of champions.-- Sweet Poly
"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it."
"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."-- August Strindberg
"The imposition of stigma is the commonest form of violence used in democratic societies."-- R. A. Pinker
Technical people are better off not looking at patents. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.-- Linus Torvalds
"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."-- Kahlil Gibran
"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
Dante Hicks: Theoretically, people see money on the counter, and no one around, they think they're being watched.
Veronica: Honesty through paranoia. (Clerks)
I speak without reservation from what I know and who I am. I do so with the understanding that all people should have the right to offer their voice to the chorus whether the result is harmony or dissonance, the worldsong is a colorless dirge without the differences that distinguish us, and it is that difference which should be celebrated, not condemned.-- Ani Difranco
Among economists, the real world is often a special case.-- Horngren
My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.
-Ashleigh Brilliant
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
The nice men are ugly.
The handsome men are not nice.
The handsome and nice men are gay.
The handsome, nice and heterosexual men are married.
The men who are not so handsome, but are nice, have no money.
The nice, semi-handsome men with money think we are only after their money.
The men without money are after our money.
The handsome men, who are not so nice and somewhat heterosexual, don't think we are beautiful enough.
The men who think we are beautiful, that are heterosexual, somewhat nice, and have money, are cowards.
The men who are somewhat handsome, somewhat nice, have some money, and are heterosexual, are shy and NEVER MAKE THE FIRST MOVE.
The men who never make the first move automatically lose interest in us when we make the first move.
On applause: They named it Ovation from the Latin ovis, a sheep.-- Plutarch
Aquadextrous, adj: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time."-- George Orwell
The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering!-- Ashleigh Brilliant
"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)
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)
"I am not part of the problem; I am a Republican."-- Dan Quayle
C gives you enough rope to hang yourself. C++ also gives you the tree object to tie it to.
First law of debate: Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.
Primus in orbe Deus fecit timor.
"It was fear that introduced gods into the world."
"Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends."-- S. Weir Mitchell
The use of either 'PC' or 'lighten up' is usually enough to cause me to junk an article: the former indicates that the writer is a raving moron incapable of original thought, while the latter is a pretty clear indication that the writer is an insensitive clod.-- Melinda Shore
"Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."-- Mark Twain
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
Mary had a crypto key,
she kept it in escrow,
and everything that Mary said,
the Feds were sure to know.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.-- Douglas Adams
"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)
"Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that they are not even superficial."-- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly."-- Arnold Edinborough
"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."-- Stephen King
"Mosquitoes have caused more deaths than all the wars. Guppies devour mosquito larvae so may be the best defense against them...We budget billions for military systems. Preposterous! Spend it on guppies!" (letter to the editor, Eugene newspaper)
Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realized that our earth was not the center of the universe, but only a speck in a world-system of a magnitude hardly conceivable... The second was when biological research robbed man of his particular privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from the animal world.-- Sigmund Freud
"The west won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-westerners never do."-- Samuel P. Huntington
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."
Q. What's the difference between an aerobics instructor and a well-mannered professional torturer?
A. The torturer would apologize first.
"Love is not the dying note of a twisted violin - it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring."-- S.J. Perelman
"Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely."-- Hesketh Pearson
Take it from the staff of a five-cat house: A group of cats is a "conceit." They'd like to be a "pride" but that would fool no one.-- Morely Dotes
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.-- Confucius
"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good."-- Robert Graves
> 0C is freezing, 100C is boiling, 70F is a nice day, and 110C is a nice
> sauna.
This is the same logic that took out the Mars Polar Lander, I see.-- Peter da Silva
"I would rather believe that God did not exist than believe that He was indifferent."-- George Sand
Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is the presence of a system for resolving conflicts before war becomes necessary. War never creates peace.
The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.-- Jean Kerr
The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best".-- H. Allen Smith
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.
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?-- Kelvin Throop III
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night.-- Otto Von Bismarck
"Men are like pumpkins. It seems like all the good ones are either taken or they've had everything scraped out of their heads with a spoon."
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)
"Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions."-- Woody Allen
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."-- Ben Franklin
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
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.-- Edsger Dijkstra
What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?-- Marilyn Pittman
"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere."-- G. K. Chesterton
He flung himself flat on the swaying roof, held out the crossbow, shut his eyes and fired.
In accordance with ancient narrative practice, the shot ricocheted off someone's helmet and brought down an innocent bird some distance away, whose only role was to expire with a suitable humorous squawk.-- Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent)
"[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)
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."-- Theodore Roosevelt
Where there is great love, there are always wishes.-- Willa Cather
"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwile."-- Franklin P. Jones
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great machinery.-- Horace Mann
Genies rarely have nightmares, for the same reason that elephants don't usually worry about being trampled underfoot. With the possible exception of bottles, there's nothing in the cosmos large enough or malicious enough to frighten them, or stupid enough to try.-- Tom Holt ("Djinn Rummy")
"A child does not have to be taught how to be happy or the ways of love. It is fear, hatred, & prejudice that have to be taught. And from the condition of the world we can see that unfortunately there are some very good teachers."-- Javan
"In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do you ever find them."-- Dr. Joyce Brothers
"What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother.
"Encouragement, dear..." she replied.
"The first thing to remember about Unix is that nothing is ever spelled correctly."-- Steve Lidie
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."-- Walter Bagehot
Listen to the Mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Shouldn'ts,
The Impossibles, the Won'ts.
Listen to the Never haves,
Then listen close to me--
Anything can happen, child
Anything can be.-- Shel Silverstein
Luxury is the main cause of boredom; Boredom is a main cause of extreme thoughts, eg. violence.
What luck for the rulers that men do not think.-- Adolf Hitler
"Politics is the entertainment branch of industry."-- Frank Zappa
Stand and fight, you misbegotten spawn of the perverse breeding between a pixie and a squirrel!
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?-- T. S. Eliot
Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.-- Fred Brooks
The great enemy of truth is often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.-- John F. Kennedy
They say that every man has a price at which he'll do anything. I like to think it's the other way around; every man has a line, a line he won't cross over, no matter what the cost.-- Fraser Sr. (Due South)
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."
A tall man with long grey hair falling untidily over the collar of his dark blue suit leaned against the parapet eating an ice cream. Although impeccably dressed, he was palpably all wrong, and the two policemen looked at each other with pleasant anticipation.
"Drugs?" suggested the first policeman.
"More like dirty books," said the other. "If he's armed, it's my turn."
"It's always your turn," grumbled his companion. The first policeman shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, all right then," he said. "But I get to drive back to the station."-- Tom Holt ("Expecting Someone Taller")
If we couldn't laugh at things that didn't make sense,
we couldn't react to a lot of the world around us." (Calvin & Hobbes)
Spirtle, n: The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Do unto others before they undo you.
Baby-sitter, n: A teenager acting like an adult, while the adults are out acting like teenagers.
Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it.-- Max Frisch
[A] thing is symmetrical if there is something we can do to it so that after we have done it, it looks the same as it did before.-- Richard Feynman
Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
"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!'"
We think in language, therefore the quality of our thoughts can only ever be as good as the quality of our language.-- George Carlin
It swims through a sublogical fantasy world where there are no rules that can't be violated by the set designer, where everybody is really thin and beautiful and wears really cool clothes, and where death is everywhere.-- Stephen Hunter (The Washington Post, review of 'The Cell')
The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would rather use them to mimic something better.-- Edsger Dijkstra
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
"A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us."-- Franz Kafka
Psychoanalysis is the mental illness it purports to cure.-- Karl Kraus
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.-- Dorothy Parker
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.
Tell you what. When the vast majority of straight folks in this country learn how to have a private life privately, learn how to "just be themselves without telling it to everybody", why then I'll try to learn from them how to do the same.-- Elaine May
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
"The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about."-- George Santayana
Maybe that explains Perl: Larry Wall let a kitten have its way with the bash, sed, and expr doc, then implemented the result.-- Jay Maynard
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.-- Emo Philips
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.'
Do you know the difference between involvement and commitment? Think of ham and eggs. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.-- Martina Navratilova
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.-- Mark Van Doren
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.-- Bertrand Russell
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.-- Mae West.
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?-- Lily Tomlin
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Politics is like coaching a football team. You have to be smart enough to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
This is one of those episodes which makes you want to call up the screenwriter and ask to see their slash. `Cause you know they write it.-- Rhipodon Society
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")
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
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."
"The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be."-- Raymond Chandler
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.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.-- Richard Feynman
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
Practical philosophy: The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It is twice as large as it needs to be.
No group of parents should have the right either to prevent other people's children from being educated or to require--as a quid pro quo--that they be equally exposed to the religious doctrines of Christian fundamentalism. It's bad enough that these parents may be denying their own children the educational tools necessary to cope with the diverse society into which they will be graduating. It is too much to give them a veto over the education of the rest of our children.-- Alan Dershowitz
"The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."-- Victor Hugo
"Greek mythology says that whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. I'd never been sure whether 'mad' meant crazy or angry. Either way, the gods were working on me pretty good right now."-- Darien Fawkes (The Invisible Man)
"The country has charms only for those not obliged to stay there."-- Edouard Manet
"If I have any more caffeine, I'm going to end up running down the hallway naked." (Someone on Slashdot)
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.-- Steven Wright
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.-- Anais Nin
"Everybody winds up kissing the wrong person good night."-- Andy Warhol
Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all--the apathy of human beings.-- Helen Keller
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.-- Winston Churchill
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-- Albert Einstein
"Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable."-- Henry Louis Mencken
"Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief."-- Arthur Schnitzler
On going to war over religion:
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend.
The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand.
We listen to reply.
Being called a poetess brings out the terroristress in me.-- Audre Lorde
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forget their use.-- Galileo Galilei
What is the nature of God? His nature is entirely dependent upon the age or culture that has reinvented him.-- Solomon Skink
Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.-- Ashleigh Brilliant
As the main says, it has yet to be proven intelligence has any survival value.
Whether it deserves some respect is another matter.
"Women are like cell phones. They like to be held and talked to, but push the wrong button, and you'll be disconnected."
It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.-- Blaise Pascal
There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting their REAL earnings to the IRS.-- Bastard Operator From Hell
'Be yourself' is about the worst advice you can give to people.-- Tom Masson
An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.-- Don Marquis
AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.
"Every man has his follies, and often they are the most interesting thing he has got."-- Josh Billings
It's true that the French have a certain obsession with sex, but it's a particularly adult obsession. France is the thriftiest of all nations; to a Frenchman sex provides the most economical way to have fun. The French are a logical race.-- Anita Loos
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.-- Will Rogers
Lust comes at first sight, love comes after staring at the same person for elongated periods of time.-- lj user slvrstarlight
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."-- Ursula K. Le Guin
John (still confused): "They're not real. They're cartoons. This is reality."
The Warners (looking at each other, then at the audience): "We won't tell him if you won't." (Farscape: Toonscape)
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.-- Brian Kernighan
Arachnoleptic fit, n: The frantic dance performed just after you accidentally walk through a spider web.
Sign in a Nairobi restaurant:
"Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager."
The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.-- Sloan Wilson
"Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."-- Mark Twain
C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.-- Bjarne Stroustrup
"Most people do not watch TV because they want to watch TV. They watch TV to relieve themselves of the burden of finding something actually enjoyable to do."
"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
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.-- Dorothy Parker
Cat: Ethereal music wreathed in mystery.
The job of the poet is to render the world -- to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.-- Mark Van Doren
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.-- Dr. Carl Sagan
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."-- Michael Sinz
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only the relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves.-- John Berger
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.-- H. L. Mencken
Thermalophobia (thur muh lo fo' be uh), n: The fear when showering that someone will sneak in, flush the toilet, and scald you to death.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"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.'"
"A sense of humor is the only thing that keeps intelligent people from hanging themselves."-- Voltaire
They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.-- Terry Pratchett ("Equal Rites")
Every time I have to pipe something into awk I get this mental picture of a big fat seagull with stdin connected at the wrong end.-- Arther van der Harg (a.s.r.)
In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.-- Albert Camus
But I wouldn't try to please the stupid people. That's what some homosexuals think we should try to do. It won't work because the bigotry comes not from the behavior of the minority but from the mind of the bigot. A sexually inadequate person like Patrick Buchanan has a need within himself to have this attitude toward homosexuality. His attitude is not based on observation of homosexuals. It comes from within himself. It's the same as anti-Semitism. The New York Times is a Jewish paper, and it is extremely respectful. But an anti-Semite is going to say, well these are just rich Park Avenue Jews. He is not going to draw his observation based on the behavior of the Times; it's going to come from within himself. He has a need to be anti-Semitic. You can't please these people.-- Boyd McDonald
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
"[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?"
"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
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.'
A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls.-- Terry Pratchett (The Light Fantastic)
"We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person, perfectly."
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.-- Mark Twain
"Legend -- a lie that has attained the dignity of age."-- H. L. Mencken
"I find imperfection the most interesting thing about a person"-- Jodi Foster
Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.-- Tom Stoppard
The only good strategy is one that no one else understands.-- Tracy Kidder
It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.-- Jerome K. Jerome
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.-- Abbie Hoffman
Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed a cat. (Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London)
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the the heroes, why don't you...-- Terry Pratchett (The Light Fantastic)
O'Brien: It's funny. I've served on half a dozen different ships and none of them have had cloaking devices except the Defiant. Now that we're not using it, I feel naked.
Worf: It is disconcerting, to say the least.
Sisko: Gentlemen, I feel the same breeze you do.
O'Brien to Dax: What you you smiling at?
Jadzia Dax: I don't know, I guess it's just being in the same room as so many naked men. (Star Trek: DS9 (Broken Link))
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
The fun with white chocolate macadamia nut cookies is telling which white fatty substance is which. I can't.
The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.-- Kelvin Throop
If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.-- Mae West
Venkman: I'm a little hazy on this good/bad stuff. What exactly is bad?
Igon: Imagine life as you know it stopping instantaneously and all the molecules in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Venkman: That would be bad. (Ghostbusters)
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
The obvious mathematical breakthrough [to break modern encryption] would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.-- Bill Gates (The Road Ahead)
On emulating hormones and long-range neurotransmitters:
"If your job is delivering packages and all the packages are very small and your boss doesn't care who you give them to as long as it's on the correct continent and you have until the next ice age to get the work done, then you don't have a very difficult profession. I see no reason why simulating that anachronism would present the slightest difficulty."-- John K. Clark
"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)
Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're OK, chances are you're the one.
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.-- Dandemis
When you look at someone through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. (BoJack Horseman)
"God is my co-pilot, but the Devil is my bombardier."-- Bumper sticker
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.-- Abbie Hoffman
The haunting fragrance of her mysterious perfume lingered with me long after the blinding sting of her pepper spray had faded.-- Nick DeCamp
"The learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but still 'tis nonsense."-- Benjamin Franklin
"The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words." (Atlanta Journal)
Ford was humming something. It was just one note repeated at intervals. He was hoping that somebody would ask him what he was humming, but nobody did. If anybody had asked him he would have said he was humming the first line of a Noel Coward song called "Mad About the Boy" over and over again. It would then have been pointed out to him that he was only singing one note, to which he would have replied that for reasons which he hoped would be apparent, he was omitting the "about the boy" bit. He was annoyed that nobody asked.-- Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
The longer I live, the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.-- Henry David Thoreau
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.-- Oscar Wilde
Ever since Hume's analysis of causation, it has been clear that events in the world are not connected by necessity. "Laws of nature" are descriptive, not legislative. They are devised by man for the purpose of organizing his expeience. Einstein wrote:
Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logocally uniform system of thought. ... The sense-experiences are the given subject-matter. But the theory that shall interpret them is man-made. ... hypothetical, never completely final, always subject to question and doubt.
('Pragmatism and Science')
One nice thing about egotists: They don't talk about other people.-- Lucille S. Harper
When you dig straight down, you won't reach the other end of the earth. There's a couple of reasons:
-You will drown in the water.
-If you brought scuba gear, you will burn because the center of the earth is too hot.
-If you even thought of that and brought a portable black hole� with you, you'll become disoriented, partly due to gravity, and start digging in circles.
Because these moments, as precious as they are, they're evil when they're gone.
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.-- John Stuart Mill
X-Chromosome: A genetic double-cross that empowers women with the ability to bear children and reserves for men the right to be color-blind hemophiliacs. (Cynic's Dictionary)
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.-- Albert Einstein
The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but living, honored rules of conduct amongst us... I'm glad the American Civil Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so.-- Adlai Stevenson
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)
"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")
Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.-- Pablo Picasso
Basically, to learn Unix you learn to understand and apply a small set of key ideas and achieve expertise by expanding both the set of ideas and your ability to apply them-- Paul Murphy
I think that Vulcan is a geekocracy where the people who know the most about sci-fi get to rule.-- <br />
Keith Irwin
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)
"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)
Work like you don't need the money
Love like you've never been hurt
Fuck like you're being filmed
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."-- John Gilmore
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.-- Rita Mae Brown
"The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority."-- Stanley Milgram
I told my girlfriend last night how much I loved her, and she said that I must have been out drinking again. I asked her why she would say that, and she said, 'Because I'm your father.'-- Dave George
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")
Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are software.-- Richard P. Brennan
Saying that the just overturned systems of eastern Europe are proof the socialism isn't good or doesn't work, is sort of like saying that a particular Christian church that failed in producing ethical behavior in its adherents is proof that we need to abandon the Golden Rule and start being nasty to each other.-- Rob Bernardo
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
"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times."-- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII
Natural vs. unnatural is a pretty worthless distinction.
-- Greg Parkinson
Only to someone such as yourself, with a deliberate disability to perceive the difference.
-- Bob Sarver
But easy for someone like you, who can manufacture the difference on the spot.-- Mike Batchelor
"Ah," said the president [Reagan] with great lucidity, "It's true we shipped weapons to Iran, but they were defensive weapons."
If the man had a brain, he'd play with it.-- Molly Ivins
"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it."-- Stephen Butler Leacock
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves but wiser people are full of doubts.-- Bertrand Russell
The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.-- Alfred Kinsey
"Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it."-- Jack Wagner
From the 'Rules for women':
Women wearing Wonderbras and low-cut blouses lose their right to complain about being stared at.
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.-- Kierkegaard
I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you find yourself up there.-- Fred Allen
[American Family Association Targets MTV] Thank God we know we're right; thank God we know we possess the Truth; thank God we know the proper values to give to our children, so that we need not teach them to think for themselves; thank God we have passed beyond the stage of needing to ask questions; thank God we have been given the Vision of the perfect world; thank God we have a decision procedure for telling the difference between Gospel hymns and rock video music. I hope God has a sense of humour, and I hope She doesn't give up on us for following our silly, narrow-minded, self-important ways.-- Joel Parthemore
Rincewind rather enjoyed times like this. They convinced him that he wasn't mad because, if he was mad, that left no word at all to describe some of the people he met.-- Terry Pratchett (Sourcery)
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."-- Carl Gustav Jung
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.-- Douglas Adams
Ellen Ripley: Whenever he says anything, you say, "right," Brett. You know that?
Brett: Right. (Alien)
It's a mistake to underestimate the human capacity for self-delusion.-- Robert Park
"Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will."-- Jawaharal Nehru
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)
Elbonics, n: The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"Hey, Aeryn's gorgeous--she can change any guy's tune. She can also change 'im from tenor to soprano, but that's beside the point."-- Grace
They don't make nostalgia like they used to.
Don't talk to me about the public not being able to stomach the abnormal, man -- most people get too used to lying to themselves about anything uncomfortable at so early an age that they themselves are not a reliable source.-- Susan Juroff
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
Brain, n: The apparatus with which we think that we think.-- Ambrose Bierce
Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.-- Philip K Dick
"Don't keep a man guessing too long--he's sure to find the answer somewhere else."-- Mae West
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.-- Mark Twain
Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without an education. Education appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.-- A. E. Wiggan
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
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")
"County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when...Hello??" (Calvin & Hobbes)
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.-- Thomas Jefferson
If you think that mental illness interferes with financial success, just look at the average television evangelist.
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.-- R. D. Laing
The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.-- Gloria Leonard
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.-- Alfred Adler
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.-- Sean O'Casey
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
Lactomangulation - n. Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? My answer to that would be, 'No.'-- Aaron Copland
"That all men should be brothers is the dream of people who have no brothers."-- Charles Chincholles
The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do.-- Harold Coffin
"To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition."-- Albert Einstein
"There are things that I refuse to deal with except through my music... because I don't trust humanity that much, and I don't know if I trust me that much. But I trust the songs."-- Tori Amos (CD Booklet)
Brandolini's law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.-- A. H. Weiler
"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."-- Bern Williams
"You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements."-- Norman Douglas
The defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors.-- Henry Becque
America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've got to want it bad, because it's going to put up a fight. It's going to say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil; who's standing center stage, advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim that this land is the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest."
Now show me that. Defend that. Celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.-- President Andrew Shepard (The American President)
Everything we hear is an opinion, not fact. Everything we see is an perspective, not the truth.-- Marcus Aurelius
Why can't some people take a joke? Well, maybe because they're honest, and the joke doesn't belong to them.-- Matt Diamond
"The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little."-- Porterfield
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
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It's the only way to make progress.-- Havelock Vetinari
Sniglet, n: Any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.-- Erica Jong
"In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place."-- Mahatma Gandhi
"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."-- Oscar Wilde
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.-- Eleanor Roosevelt
"The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself."-- Thomas Szasz
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
"If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?"-- Linda Ellerbee
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.-- Kahlil Gibran
"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."-- Eric Hoffer
"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game."-- Paul Rodriguez
I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.-- George Bernard Shaw
"Our generation has an incredible amount of realism, yet at the same time it loves to complain and not really change. Because, if it does change, then it won't have anything to complain about."-- Tori Amos
I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.-- Voltaire
Life may seem unfair, but Life never cheats the way people do.-- Stewart Kramer
Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but we want a different one.-- Ivern Ball
"I understand your question and the answer is 'You're thinking too hard.'"-- Jose Garcia
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
What's the matter, darling? Don't you recognize me with my clothes on?-- Tallulah Bankhead
Why do people settle their minds? When they see or while they know that about 3 billion other people don't agree with them, why do they hardly consider a serious talk with one of them?
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."-- Isaac Asimov
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
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?-- Steven Wright
In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.-- Carl Sagan
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.-- Oscar Wilde
Now, in the Overall Schema Of The Universe, I would imagine that this sort of thing ranks somewhere down around gnat's eyelashes.-- George Madison
"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)
Nerb, n: a noun used as a verb. For example: ''They didn't language the proclamation very well''. nerb, nerbing, nerbed v. the act of using nouns as verbs in a sentence.-- Rich Hill
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.-- Mary Little
"In America sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world it is a fact."-- Marlene Dietrich
"And I'm not all that decent and honorable. I'm merely well-bred, which I hope is a tolerable substitute."-- Anne Rice (Ramses the Damned)
DW is based on a slew of old myths, which reach their most 'refined' form in Hindu mythology, which in turn of course derived from the original Star Trek episode 'Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot'.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
Men are like a fine wine.
They start out as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the living shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world.-- John Burroughs
"If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one."-- John Galsworthy
"Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone."-- Mark Twain
I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.-- Mark Twain
Dublin University contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.-- Samuel Beckett
'I think,' he said slowly, 'that the only reason people think you can't kill a vampire by shoving its head up its own arse is because nobody's ever actually tried it. What do you think, guys?'-- Tom Holt ("My Hero")
In a church bulletin: Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
"I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, *giftless*. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy, I'm a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?'"-- Aaron Sorkin
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
-- Henry Brooks Adams
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
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
On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.-- Charles Babbage
“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”-- Rick Warren
The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing.-- Gamel Abdel Nasser
"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."-- Samuel Johnson
No matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature.-- Steven Wright
Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope.-- Arnold Glasgow
May you get to Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead.-- Irish Proverb
"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
AFPer: Terry, what the heck was going on at the end of Strata? I've just re-read the ending again and come up with another possible explanation which takes the total number into double figures.
TP: See? Other people would just have given you one or two. Amazing value, I think.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop quickly.-- Dave Barry ("Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide")
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.-- W. Somerset Maugham
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
Common sense: The collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.-- Albert Einstein
The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony #9.-- Erwin Dietrich
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.-- Thomas Jefferson
"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)
"The Prophets teach us patience."
-- Vedek Bareil
"It appears they also teach you politics."-- Sisko (Star Trek: DS9)
'The whole world loves a lover' is an interesting theory, but a very bad legal defense.-- Keith Sullivan
"It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U. S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the senate."
-- George McGovern
Sometimes you have to bite people hard on the lip before they realize you're not kissing them, so keenly do they yearn for approval.-- Jess Anderson
"Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin."-- Tori Amos
"Aaaarghhhh."
This was the noise made as he missed the lurching Thing by several meters and was realising that, if you have tied a rope to the top of a very high and extremely solid stone tower and are now swinging towards it, failing to hit something on the way is an error which you will regret for the rest of your truncated life.-- Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures)
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.-- Robert Heinlein
"Anger is natural. It's part of the force. You just have to learn to hang out with it."-- Tori Amos
I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.-- Lily Tomlin
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.-- Chinese Proverb
"Even the AI hated [my book]?"
"The AI loved it. That's when we knew for sure that people were going to hate it."-- Dan Simmons (Hyperion)
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
On the internet, no one knows you're a CHICKEN! A GIANT CHICKEN!-- Denis Moskowitz
I listen so that I may decipher the mystery of myself and become more whole.-- Richard Moss
Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding.-- Mahatma Gandhi
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."-- Kierkegaard
"The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality."-- Oscar Wilde
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.-- Aldous Huxley
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."-- Ernest Hemingway
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.-- Robert A. Heinlein
"You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here’s a hint - ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn’t just the women. It’s the great male fantasy - all it takes is one dance to know that she’s the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know - this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don’t want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately."-- David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
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
Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don't ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul.-- Dominique (The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand)
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.-- Aristotle
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.-- Hannah More
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.-- Albert Einstein
On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.-- Virginia Woolf
Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.-- Mark Twain
It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess.-- Roger Noe
I usually shoot for that threshold of coffee strength that's just *short* of the coffee achieving sentience.-- Gretchen Wright
"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
In business, your judged by what you say... nothing can kill the confidence of a perspective client faster then a proposal littered with grammatical, usage or punctuation errors. (Ad for RightWriter, The Grammar Checker)
"Y'ever notice how Man is often likened to a virus or a cancer, spreading across the globe, using up resources, changing ecosystems? How come these people never talk about the prehistoric plants and trees that spread across the earth, converting all that carbon dioxide to oxygen and leaching nitrogen and other nutrients out of the soil? As their dead carcasses piled on top of each other over the millenia, they decomposed into pools of hydrocarbons, forming petroleum and coal. Directly and indirectly, plants are the true despoilers of the planet, taking pure and sweet solar energy and perverting it into hideous (dare I say, evil) carbon compounds.
"'Green' alternatives my ass! Kill a plant today and stop the destruction of Earth's pristine beauty!"-- Gerry Deckert
"...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
If you sat a monkey down in front of a keyboard, the first thing typed would be a UNIX command.-- Bill Lye
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.-- Oscar Wilde
"The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular."-- Edward Gibbon
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.-- Kahlil Gibran
"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."-- Robert Frost
Wadsworth: The game's up, Scarlet. There are no more bullets left in that gun.
Scarlet: Oh, come on, you don't think I'm gonna fall for that old trick?
Wadsworth: It's not a trick. There was one shot at Mr. Boddy in the study. Two for the chandelier, two at the lounge door, and one for the singing telegram.
Scarlet: That's not six.
Wadsworth: One plus two plus two plus one.
Scarlet: Uh, uh. There was only one shot that got the chandelier. That's one plus two plus one plus one.
Wadsworth: Even if you are right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.
Scarlet: Okay, fine. One plus two plus one--Shut up! (Clue)
The poor little wooden boy could only sit helplessly and watch while the old puppet maker, his father, whom he had just told how a nice fairy had turned him into a living boy, worked on a life-sized puppet of a young woman with big hooters.
The water under the lid was inky black and, according to rumour, bottomless; the Ogg grandchildren were encouraged to believe that monsters from the dawn of time dwelt in its depths, since Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood.
In summer she used it as a beer cooler.-- Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)
"A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind."-- Albert Einstein
"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
"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too earnestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties." (Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850)
"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")
"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."-- Horace Walpole
"You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her."
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."-- Anais Nin
He's come up with half of the algorithms used in the 20th century, but wouldn't actually recognize an actual computer if you dropped it on him.-- Jason Riek (about Dana Scott)
"The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy."-- Louis Kronenberger
"Sure it's simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up. All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words, and little dumb ideas, and don't be too scary, and make sure there's a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it."-- Ursula K. Le Guin
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.-- Albert Einstein
"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it."-- George Bernard Shaw
Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.-- Douglas Adams (Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
"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."
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexeplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.-- Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio scripts)
Practical or mean and sneaky? - getting a permanent heart tatoo on your arm and getting three-day temporary tatoos for the names.
Pigslice, n: The last unclaimed piece of pizza that everyone is secretly dying for.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.-- Samuel Butler
"The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it."-- Doug Larson
Rhetorical subtlety doesn't work on people with the perceptive powers of an eggplant.-- Spencer Sun
"I don't want to join the kind of a club that accepts people like me as members."-- Groucho Marx
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Especially Bob Dylan.-- Jim Rosenberg
Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten.
I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.-- Flannery O'Connor
The UNIX system has a command, 'nice', which allows a user to voluntarily reduce the priority of his process, in order to be nice to other users. Nobody ever uses it.-- Andy Tanenbaum
Can there be, when you think about it, a more improbable sentiment than 'Get fucked!'? We might as well snarl 'Make a lot of money!' or 'Have a nice day!'-- Bill Bryson (The Mother Tongue)
"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all."-- Henry David Thoreau
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.)
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)
Giving help doesn't mean dashing in and doing what seems like a good idea to you. It means doing what the other person wants. If what the person wants is for you leave them alone, it means doing that.-- John Fisher
"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason."-- Bertrand Russell
Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.-- Oscar Wilde
Spagmumps, n: Any of the millions of Styrofoam wads that accompany mail-order items.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
The American public knows what it wants, and deserves to get it good and hard.-- H. L. Mencken
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.-- Konrad Lorenz
Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.-- Terry Pratchett
"All dogmas perish the thinking mind, especially ones you agree with."-- Adam Richardson
That's what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.-- Charles Bukowski
Nana is now 99, in a nursing home, healthy, and still as sharp as a tack (not the best situation when you're surrounded by the demented, but she makes do).
-- Steve Dyer
Ah, then she'd have no problem relating to Usenet...-- David Preston
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."-- James D. Nicoll
All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.-- Samuel Butler
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.-- Adlai Stevenson
As far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.-- Bertrand Russell
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
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.-- Oscar Wilde
"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn."-- David Russell
"The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but hold hands."-- Alexander Penney
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
"Tooth Fairies? Hogfathers? Little--"
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.
"They're not the same at all!"
You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet... Death waved a hand. And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point--"
My point exactly-- Terry Pratchett (Death and Susan in <em>Hogfather</em>)
Grandpa: "I'm an old man, no one listens to me."
Lisa: "I'm a young girl, no one listens to me."
Homer: "I'm a white male aged 18 to 49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are."
*homer walks over to the cabinet and takes out a can labeled "Nuts and Gum: Together At Last"* (The Simpsons)
What a man knows at fifty that he didn't know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable.-- Adlai Stevenson
Apparently a real radio transcript conversation off the coast of Newfoundland.
Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
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
Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all." (Stargate SG-1)
He said "It's all in your head", and I said "So's everything" but he didn't get it /
I thought he was a man but he was just a little boy.-- Fiona Apple (Paper Bag)
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.-- Elizabeth Taylor
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.-- Plato
Dragons are the living embodiment of power, purpose, and real estate devaluation.-- Marc Gabriele
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
"The main differences between a computer salesman and a used car salesman is that the used car salesman can probably drive and knows when he's lying."-- Peter da Silva
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)
Most people deserve each other.
"People aren’t against you; they are for themselves."
What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable.-- Albert Einstein
You can tell how far we have to go when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers.-- Steven Feiner
"No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved."-- Mignon McLaughlin
"I am the very master of the multipurpose metaphor;
I put them into speeches which I always feel the better for.
The speed of my delivery is totally vehicular;
I'm burning with a passion about nothing in particular.
I'm well acquainted too with matters technological;
I'm able to explain myself in phrases tautological.
My language is poetical and full of hidden promises . . .
It's like the raging torrent of a thousand Dylan Thomases".-- Alistair Beaton
"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)
There's a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don't all bring you lasagna at work. Most of 'em just cheat on you.-- Silent Bob (Clerks)
"Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves."-- J. B. Priestley
"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)
"To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves."-- Claude Adrien Helvetius
Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?-- Alan Kay (``Computer Software'', Scientific American)
"When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?"-- Tori Amos
[I was] out for a stroll and came across a bunch of the usual teens hanging out having an argument, the local police officers part of the crowd, leaning on the fence, listening quietly. It was dark out.
"Stupidness isn't a word, dummy," one said.
"Yes it is, stupidness, that's what it is."
I deduced quickly that they'd wandered away from a previous topic.
"It's stupidity not stupidness."
"Maybe it's both."
The debate raged on. I felt like I was on the net.-- Max Vasilatos
"Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become."-- Edward O. Wilson
Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.-- Woody Allen
"The problem with post-modernism is that you like it more if you're innumerate or illiterate; both is best."-- Graydon
Today was a really, really great day, on the "aaagh fuck me!" scale.-- Steve VanDevender
"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion."-- Scott Adams
"The spam wars are about rendering email useless for unsolicited advertising before unsolicited advertising renders email useless for communication."-- Walter Dnes / Jeff Wynn
Honk if you've slept with Riker.
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
"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)
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")
I don't worry about safely using my hp calculator or yacc, or the ruler and pencil on my desk. Why should we accept the attitude that it is ok to need to worry about safely using the rest of our tools. Today there is a legitimate safety issue for computer users that we should all be aware of. The answer is not acceptance of a necessary amount of paranoia.-- Bill Mangione-Smith
"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music."-- Angela Monet
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.-- Harry S. Truman
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.-- George Bernard Shaw
Please storyteller, pull a tale from your pocket,
Spin me a story from your coat-tails so bare,
For my heart has turned cold, and my dreams are too old,
And I need to know the magic's still there-- Heather Alexander (Storyteller)
"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
People are always so boring when they band together. You have to be alone to develop all the idiosyncrasies that make a person interesting.-- Andy Warhol
Unfortunately, as Usenet gets out to the masses it will become diluted.
-- Nelson Minar
*Again*!?!?
-- David Preston
"A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity."-- Robert Frost
"Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock."-- New York Times
Power doesn't always corrupt. Power always reveals. When you have enough power to do what you always wanted to do, then you see what the guy always wanted to do.
Sometimes I wish I had a knob to turn up the intelligence on the Internet. I have one on my monitor marked brightness, but it doesn't seem to work very well, does it?-- Bryan Manske
Many times one is asked to "listen" to the same dusty old set of lies, factual errors, hate and stupidity that some fool thinks is an acceptable ethical system. Why bother? Believe me, it gets old real fast.-- Bob Lodenkamper
"Almost every culture, every group, quote, unquote, has a way it wants to perceive things. And when I write songs, the Christians feel that because I'm not speaking the way they would like me to, that I don't believe in God, that I'm not part of the Christian formula. But being a minister's daughter, I know it very well."-- Tori Amos
"How many fingers am I holding up?" -- Kirk, making the Vulcan salute
"That's not very damn funny."-- McCoy (Star Trek III)
You couldn't get a clue during the clue mating season in a field full of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance.-- Edward Flaherty
C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't.-- Ray Simard
Cops and reporters are much alike. Both are absolutely dedicated to doing the job at hand, regardless of obstacles. And both, deep down, really believe the rules don't apply to them.-- Jim Barlow (Houston Chronicle)
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."-- Donald E. Knuth
Every day we slaughter our finest impulses.
That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines writtenby the hand of a master and recognize them as our own,
as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faithto believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.
Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself,
Is capable of uttering profound truths.
We all derive from the same source.
There is no mystery about the origin of things.
We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians;
we have only to open up, to discover what is already there.-- Henry Miller, Sexus
"Doing what we please is not freedom, is not liberty; rather, it is the abuse of true liberty and freedom."-- Cardinal Hayes
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.-- Andy Rooney
"Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month."-- Wernher von Braun
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?
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day.
"In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.-- David Friedman
"If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
I braved the contempt of my friends last week and ventured out to see "Bambi", the Disney rerelease that is proving to be a hit once again in the box office. I was looking forward to a gentle, soothing, late afternoon relief from the Washington Summer. Instead I was traumatized. As a psycho-sexual return to the horrors of early adolescence, it couldn't be more effective. For the first half-hour, you're lulled into an agreeable sense of security and comfort. Birds twitter; small rabbits turn out to be great conversationalists. Pop is what Senator Moynihan would describe as an absent father, but Mom's there to make you feel OK in the odd thunderstorm.
You make great friends, fool around on the ice, discover the meadow, generally mellow out. Then, without any particular warning, your mom gets shot, your voice breaks, huge growths start appearing on your head, and your peers start heading off into the clover with the apparent intention of having sex. Next thing you know, the forest burns down. If I were still eight, I think I'd prefer Rambo III."-- Townsend Davis
These days, impulsive decisions are wanted; You're expected to have one more fancy term in your pocket than the other guy; Dogmatic egos are nearly trained to exist and prevail. I often wonder why so many middle-aged and older people want to 'keep with the times' and try to like everything their kids do. It just doesn't make sense.
"Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others."-- Edward Abbey
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."-- Robert R. Coveyou
You can't remember the plot of the Dr. Who movie because it didn't have one, just a lot of plot holes strung together. It did have a lot of flashing lights, though.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
"Well, it's weird when you play a show somewhere and there's a disproportionate number of people backstage talking about how they're witches. And that there's a cool place to go - 'Hey, you guys want to go out tonight after the show?' 'Yeah, where?' ' Well, there's a great place. There's this old abandoned church that these satanic cults hang out at.' It's not, 'Let's go down to the bar.' It's like, 'Let's go out and slaughter a cow.' What the fuck? It's the last thing you're expecting. And they assume that you must be into that. I've got someone coming up to me saying, 'The promoter is telling everyone you're a warlock.' I think a lot of spare time breeds incredible weirdness. They're looking for some way to rebel. I don't know."-- Trent Reznor