298 hits
QUOTE OF THE DAY: `
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
"One good turn gets most of the blankets"
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
2, 3, 3, 37 - the prime factorization of the beast.
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.
Pedestrian, n: The variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
"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
Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself.-- Plato
Lecture, n: Where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one.
If you're not part of the freaks, you're part of the boredom.-- Perry Farrell
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.
Oh yeah? You wanna step out of the giant robot and say that again?
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.-- Adlai Stevenson
Choconiverous, adj: Biting off the head of the chocolate Easter bunny first.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.-- Steven Wright
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.
"Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road."-- Stewart Brand
He was just... well, like a lot of madmen. Somewhat accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution. (Kid Radd)
Manners are one of the truly lost causes.-- John Simon
How do you know if honesty is the best policy unless you've tried some of the others?
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
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.-- Susan Sontag
God must love assholes--she made so many of them.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.-- E. B. White
Adultery - two wrong people doing the right thing.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.-- Oscar Wilde
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought"-- Basho
Most children grow up to be adults in spite of their parents, not because of them.
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, your're overdoing it.-- J. Jenkins
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)
"I am not part of the problem; I am a Republican."-- Dan Quayle
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."-- Oscar Wilde
"Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex."-- Oscar Wilde
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished."-- Goethe
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 Pet Principle:
No matter which side of the door your dog or cat is on, it is the wrong side.
I do not like the man: he has all of the virtues I detest and none of the vices I admire.-- Winston Churchill
X.400 is the mail system of the future, and I hope it stays that way.-- Erik Fair
Stand and fight, you misbegotten spawn of the perverse breeding between a pixie and a squirrel!
Law of Hydrodynamics: When a body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
"Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief."-- Arthur Schnitzler
Gina: "Isn't it customary for the suspect to leave the scene of the crime?"
Debra: "Definitely an amateur" (Empire Records)
"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)
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)
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
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.-- John Stuart Mill
Whoever said women don't like porn just isn't talking to the right women. Or showing them the right porn.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.-- Emerson
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
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.
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.-- H. L. Mencken
"The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me."-- George Bernard Shaw
"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 tired of being this pristine little socially acceptable monstrosity
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 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.
"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
Do not go gentle into that good night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.-- Dylan Thomas
"One of the CIA's few endearing traits is its penchant for making headlines. It is the world's most fully headlined secret agency."
"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")
"Anger is natural. It's part of the force. You just have to learn to hang out with it."-- Tori Amos
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
-- Josh Billings
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)
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."
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")
"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture"-- Bumper sticker
Spagmumps, n: Any of the millions of Styrofoam wads that accompany mail-order items.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"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
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.-- Kahlil Gibran
Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.-- The Register
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.-- Horace Walpole
"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
No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.-- Henry Kissinger
I'm sick of tattoos, sick of piercings, sick of temporary tattoos. They are the white stilettos of the '90s.-- Shirley Manson
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.-- Plato
"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
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)
Monday is the root of all evil.
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
You're probably the sort who would have Dorothy arrested for throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West.-- Eric Holeman
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
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.
Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.-- Woody Allen
"What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary."-- Richard Harkness
"In America sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world it is a fact."-- Marlene Dietrich
There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.-- Benjamin Dana
"The most merciful thing in the world...is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."-- H.P. Lovecraft
"They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck."
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
"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)
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
"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
I usually shoot for that threshold of coffee strength that's just *short* of the coffee achieving sentience.-- Gretchen Wright
The default Magic Word, Abracadabra, actually is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase ha-Bracha dab'ra which means "pronounce the blessing".
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.)
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)
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
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
"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
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)
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.-- Solomon Short
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
"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."
PMS, n: the short period of time when women act like men do all the time.
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
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
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.-- Bertrand Russell
Mustard: Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?
Wadsworth: You don't need any help from me, sir.
Mustard: That's right! (Clue)
"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."
Part of the difference of learning something by interest or necessity is how we file it, with what urgency, and how we think of it when we think of it again.
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.
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.-- Winston Churchill
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 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
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
"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
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.-- Mark Van Doren
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."
One of the problems with learning that many teachers fail to see is that until you really understand something, any argument made out of that understanding context tends to be pretty useless.
Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.
"Remember the Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules."
My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.-- Stephen Hawking
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.
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
Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.-- Mark Twain
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 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
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
"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
There are lots of things I'd like to be someday, but "normal" is definitely not one of them.-- Nelson Minar
"Television has lifted the manufacture of banality out of the sphere of handicraft and placed it in that of a major industry."-- Nathalie Sarraute
"Not all moderators and FAQ-compilers eventually become power-mad and insane. Some of them started out that way."
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)
Democracy according to the NRA: Firearms are necessary to protect individual liberties; most of all the right to own firearms.
"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."
The rich aren't like us, they pay less taxes.
Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
Let's get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.-- Robert Benchley
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
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
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."-- Mark Twain
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.-- Carl Sagan
"Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world."-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.-- Will Rogers
"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
Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.
I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.-- Dorothy Parker
"Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."-- Mark Twain
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.-- Tommy Smothers
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
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 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")
"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwile."-- Franklin P. Jones
"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.
"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."
"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!'"
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)
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.-- Andy Tanenbaum
"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
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
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)
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)
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
Television: the bland leading the bland.
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
"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
The light at the end of a tunnel may be an oncoming train.
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")
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.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when you run out of ink?
Seeing is forgetting the name of that which one sees.-- Paul Valery
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."-- Ben Franklin
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
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)
Proof by omission: The reader may easily supply the details. The other 253 cases are analogous.
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
"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read."-- Winston Churchill
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")
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
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
T.S. Quint: She calls you callow in here.
Brodie Bruce: You say that like it's bad.
T.S. Quint: Well, it means frightened and week-willed.
Brodie Bruce: Really? Shit, that was the only part of the letter that I thought was complimentary. (Mallrats)
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)
If the mind were exercised as much as the mouth, we would be a race of geniuses.
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)
"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)
"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
Men are like parking spaces: the good ones are taken and the rest are handicapped.
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
If the pen is mightier than the sword then how can actions speak louder than words?
"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)
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Patageometry, n: The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant under brain transplants.
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."
Excellence is the trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc.-- Dave Barry ("In Search of Excellence")
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)
When you look at someone through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. (BoJack Horseman)
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?"-- Jean Kerr
"I do actually believe in love. I can't say that I'm 100 percent successful in that department, but I think it's one of the few worthwhile human experiences. It's cooler than anything I can think of right now."-- Trent Reznor
"My concept of the great spirit is not the controlling force that is in institutional religion. When I say God, I'm talking about judgments over thousands of years that are horrific - love your neighbor but do what we say or we'll rape your women."-- Tori Amos
"There are many silly superstitions about lightning, and as a result many people - maybe even you - are terrified of it. You shouldn't worry. Thanks to modern science we now know that lightning is nothing more than huge chunks of electricity that can come out of the sky, anytime, anywhere, and kill you."-- Dave Barry
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
The ballast of factual information, so far from being just about to sink us, is growing daily less. The factual burden of a science varies inversely with its degree of maturity. As a science advances, particular facts are comprehended within, and therefore in a sense annihilated by, general statements of steadily increasing explanatory power and compass--whereupon the facts need no longer be known explicitly, that is, spelled out and kept in mind. In all sciences we are being progressively relieved of the burden of singular instances, the tyranny of the particular. We need no longer record the fall of every apple.-- Peter Medawar ("Pluto's Republic")
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
Frisbeetarianism: the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh."-- W. H. Auden
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
Luxury is the main cause of boredom; Boredom is a main cause of extreme thoughts, eg. violence.
And the pickles frolicked with the waffles, joyously.
Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A: To get to the other slide.
"One day you make a wrong turn, or take a detour, and you end up in some crazy place you can't even find on the map, doing something you never thought you would do. Maybe you feel a little lost while it's happening, but later you realise that was the best bit of the trip." (<a href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0111418">Threesome</a>)
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
"It's a strange thing, but every sentient race has its own version of these Swedish meatballs. I suspect it's one of those great universal mysteries which will either never be explained or which would drive you mad if you ever learned the truth."-- G'Kar (Babylon 5)
"We are at times too ready to believe that the present is the only possible state of things."-- Marcel Proust
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)
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)
If there is no such thing as justice then the best we can hope for is revenge
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
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
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
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its de-evolution into the shiny things network.-- The Onion
"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
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?
"News" is just the stuff they use to fill up all the empty space they couldn't sell for advertising.
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))
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, let the machine get it.
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.-- Hannah Arendt
"You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul."-- Mahatma Gandhi
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
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)
Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.-- Terry Pratchett (alt.fan.pratchett)
Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine.
I pity you if you feel that the 'support' of such fair-weather 'friends' is more important than self-respect. Such friends offer no support, but rather slavery in a different cell: that of their approval.-- Clay Bond
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?-- Paul Simon
Beware the fury of a patient woman.
Funny. All the wireless people seem to be the marionettes.
Only the good die young. Note the average age in Congress.
"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.-- Kierkegaard
"I'm not mad at the world... just at all the people in it."
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
Be one of those upon whom nothing is lost.-- Henry James
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"-- Ayn Rand
"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
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
"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
"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
"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
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)
Accuracy, n: The vice of being right.
Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Cigarette, n: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco inbetween.
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
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.-- La Bruyere
Among economists, the real world is often a special case.-- Horngren