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The problem with reality is the lack of background music.
The law should make men free. The problem is making the law free.
2, 3, 3, 37 - the prime factorization of the beast.
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.-- Goethe
Lecture, n: Where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one.
"I am not part of the problem; I am a Republican."-- Dan Quayle
More to be feared than ignorance is the pretense of knowledge.
The sooner you start to code, the longer the program will take.-- Roy Carlson
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."-- Theodore Rubin
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.-- Chinese Proverb
The Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
"Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom."-- Eric S. Raymond
"Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much."
Half of the people in the world are below average.
Aftermath, n: The period following algebra.
The principle difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
And the pickles frolicked with the waffles, joyously.
He was just... well, like a lot of madmen. Somewhat accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution. (Kid Radd)
Be the person you needed when you were younger.
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
A wolf in sheeps clothing needs professional help.
"I'm not mad at the world... just at all the people in it."
"The Prophets teach us patience."
-- Vedek Bareil
"It appears they also teach you politics."-- Sisko (Star Trek: DS9)
"We are at times too ready to believe that the present is the only possible state of things."-- Marcel Proust
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
"The problem with post-modernism is that you like it more if you're innumerate or illiterate; both is best."-- Graydon
"Well, to be fair I did have a couple of gadgets he probably didn't, like a teaspoon and an open mind."-- The Doctor
I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."-- Oscar Wilde
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.
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
Answer the phone naked. Callers will hear it in your voice.
Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies:
As a USENET discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.-- Albert Einstein
Lunatic Asylum, n: The place where optimism most flourishes.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.-- Steven Wright
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples' weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate.-- Mike Hermann
"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
If the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when you run out of ink?
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
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
In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.-- Groucho Marx
"The 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
Study the past, if you would divine the future.-- Confucius
If it wasn't for the optimist the pessimist would never know how happy he isn't.
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
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
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
Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.
"What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother.
"Encouragement, dear..." she replied.
If the pen is mightier than the sword then how can actions speak louder than words?
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
Brought to you by the people who made "out of context" a household word.
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.
That's what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.-- Charles Bukowski
All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.-- Samuel Butler
"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
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.-- Oscar Wilde
Vizzini: Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (The Princess Bride)
The Pet Principle:
No matter which side of the door your dog or cat is on, it is the wrong side.
"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection."-- Sidney Poitier
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.
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
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.
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
Don't you think that with the proper amount of manpower, pliers, ropes, belts and duct tape, you actually COULD lead a horse to water AND make it drink?-- Andy Overman
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.-- Niels Bohr
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
"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)
My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.
-Ashleigh Brilliant
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
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."
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.-- Goethe
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
"I'd like to meet the person who invented sex and see what they're working on now."
The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.-- Mark Twain
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.-- Voltaire
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog."-- Mark Twain
"The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."-- P. B. Medawar
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
"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."
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
"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
"Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away."-- Goethe
The voters have spoken, the bastards...
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur." (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
"Must... defy... laws... of... physics!"-- The Tick
Television: the bland leading the bland.
He who laughs last probably didn't understand the joke.
Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
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)
The applied mathematician can find the solution to any difficulty, whilst the pure mathematician can find the difficulty to any solution.
You're probably the sort who would have Dorothy arrested for throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West.-- Eric Holeman
"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
In a cemetery:
"Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves."
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.
Q. What's the difference between an aerobics instructor and a well-mannered professional torturer?
A. The torturer would apologize first.
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)
"Don't be afraid to go after what you want to do, and what you want to be. But don't be afraid to be willing to pay the price."-- Lane Frost
Stand and fight, you misbegotten spawn of the perverse breeding between a pixie and a squirrel!
Arthur C. Clarke's Law :
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
...postmodernity, once the plaything of smarty-pants French guys, in truth belongs to the engagingly stupid. (Newsweek)
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.-- Tom Szasz
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.-- George Bernard Shaw
In order to become the master the politician poses as the servant.-- Charles De Gaulle
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
An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.-- Don Marquis
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
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.
"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
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.-- Dorothy Parker
Occam's eraser: The philosophical principle that even the simplest solution is bound to have something wrong with it.
As the main says, it has yet to be proven intelligence has any survival value.
Whether it deserves some respect is another matter.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.-- Goethe
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
"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)
"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
"When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-- Thomas Jefferson
"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
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")
You can be a professional without being constipated about it.-- David Keyser
"We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person, perfectly."
"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
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
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
Feature, n: A surprising property of a program. Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. ``That's not a bug, it's a feature!'' A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
May you get to Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead.-- Irish Proverb
The biblical concepts of sin and salvation are an integral part of Christian doctrine. Christianity first creates a problem (sin) and then offers a "solution" (salvation). This is not unlike the protection racket; you either buy "protection"--or else!"-- Domald Morgan
Monday is the root of all evil.
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")
I'm extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."-- G. K. Chesterton
"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
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.-- James Branch Cabell
"Remember the Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules."
"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)
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.-- Ambassador Kosh
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.-- E. B. White
"Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.-- Spiro T. Agnew
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture"-- Bumper sticker
"The first 80% of software development is the easy part. The hard part is the next 80%"
Being in a nudist colony probably takes all the fun out of Halloween.
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.-- Mark Twain
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
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.-- Anais Nin
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.-- Horace Walpole
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
I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.-- Lily Tomlin
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.-- Benjamin Dana
"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
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished."-- Goethe
"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
You probably go to museums and complain that Monet pressed down too hard with his crayons because the picture is all bumpy.-- John Woods
Being abstract is something profoundly different from being vague... The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.-- Edsger Dijkstra
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
Beware the fury of a patient woman.
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
Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A: To get to the other slide.
Rhetorical subtlety doesn't work on people with the perceptive powers of an eggplant.-- Spencer Sun
The future ain't what it used to be.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, let the machine get it.
Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.-- Oscar Wilde
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 more we disagree, the bigger the chance that at least one of us is right.
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
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
Accuracy, n: The vice of being right.
Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
"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
The future exists first in the imagination, then in the will, then in reality.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.-- Plato
"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)
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.
Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.
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)
Funny. All the wireless people seem to be the marionettes.
Only the good die young. Note the average age in Congress.
The light at the end of a tunnel may be an oncoming train.
"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
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its de-evolution into the shiny things network.-- The Onion
Domestication is the enemy of romance.
The truth is not decided by democracy.
We accept the love we think we deserve
"Our American professors like their literature clear, cold, pure and very dead."-- Sinclair Lewis
"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
I like the kind of people that can hold on to the the feeling they have after the song or movie ends.
I think that Vulcan is a geekocracy where the people who know the most about sci-fi get to rule.-- <br />
Keith Irwin
"There's nothing like desire to prevent the things one says from having any resemblance to the things in one's mind."-- Marcel Proust
"A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity."-- Robert Frost
"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."-- Harry S. Truman
Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.-- Ashleigh Brilliant
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
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)
QUOTE OF THE DAY: `
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 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
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
Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.-- Oscar Wilde
Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
"The degree of normality in a database is inversely proportional to that of its DBA"
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
Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself.-- Plato
"One good turn gets most of the blankets"
Microsoft: Re-inventing the square wheel.
Mirth prolongeth life and causeth health.
Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.
Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.-- Harry S. Truman
"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."-- August Strindberg
"Geologists know how to make the bedrock."
Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
"It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'as pretty as an airport' exist."-- Douglas Adams
"You just realize you're not on Happy Days. It's the real world; You need to ignore what you are programmed by sitcoms to think your life should be."-- Trent Reznor
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
"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
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
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
He who laughs last found the dirty meaning.
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 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 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
VB is very useful for allowing non programmers to prove they cant program.-- Druck
"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."-- Cyril Connolly
Idle hands are the air guitar's playground (Alas)