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Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.
Monday is the root of all evil.
Pedestrian, n: The variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
Frisbeetarianism: the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.-- The Register
Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
"Conviction is a luxury for those on the sidelines."
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
"Remember the Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules."
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
The future exists first in the imagination, then in the will, then in reality.
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its de-evolution into the shiny things network.-- The Onion
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
"Must... defy... laws... of... physics!"-- The Tick
we make happen the stuff we fear will happen
Join the army: meet interesting people, then kill them.
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
Adult: A person that has stopped growing at both ends but not in the middle.
On the sexes:
Brains times Beauty times Availability = Constant.
"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell."
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.
Television: the bland leading the bland.
"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
"I like to go to the beach and bury metal objects that say 'get a life' on them"
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?-- Paul Simon
"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
"All the people stared as if we were both quite insane."-- The Hollies
Adultery - two wrong people doing the right thing.
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
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.
I like the kind of people that can hold on to the the feeling they have after the song or movie ends.
"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
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.
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.
"Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog."
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
"Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road."-- Stewart Brand
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Proof by omission: The reader may easily supply the details. The other 253 cases are analogous.
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"-- Ayn Rand
If the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when you run out of ink?
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.-- Gandhi
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
"Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."
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)
If the pen is mightier than the sword then how can actions speak louder than words?
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.-- Will Rogers
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.-- Franz Kafka
"Success consists of doing the common things of life uncommonly well."
2, 3, 3, 37 - the prime factorization of the beast.
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts -- not the facts themselves.-- Cohen's Law
"When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-- Thomas Jefferson
Men are like parking spaces: the good ones are taken and the rest are handicapped.
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."-- Mark Twain
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
Whoever said women don't like porn just isn't talking to the right women. Or showing them the right porn.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.-- E. B. White
And the pickles frolicked with the waffles, joyously.
America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.
The rich aren't like us, they pay less taxes.
If there is no such thing as justice then the best we can hope for is revenge
What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?-- Marilyn Pittman
Lecture, n: Where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one.
Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A: To get to the other slide.
The voters have spoken, the bastards...
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought"-- Basho
The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.-- Lyndon B Johnson
Those who speak by the yard and think by the inch should be kicked by the foot.
"If hackers ran the world, there'd be no war. Lots of accidents, maybe."
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, let the machine get it.
"The first 80% of software development is the easy part. The hard part is the next 80%"
I'm extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
"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
The law should make men free. The problem is making the law free.
Funny. All the wireless people seem to be the marionettes.
Only the good die young. Note the average age in Congress.
There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.
"I'm not mad at the world... just at all the people in it."
Beware the fury of a patient woman.
"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection."-- Sidney Poitier
You're probably the sort who would have Dorothy arrested for throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West.-- Eric Holeman
I'd love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code.
"I find imperfection the most interesting thing about a person"-- Jodi Foster
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)
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
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
Accuracy, n: The vice of being right.
Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
"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 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.)
God, as some cynic has said, is always on the side which has the best football coach.-- Heywood Broun
Domestication is the enemy of romance.
We accept the love we think we deserve
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished."-- Goethe
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself.-- Plato
"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time."-- George Orwell
"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."
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.-- Susan Sontag
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
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 elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
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
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
"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
Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside. (Calvin & Hobbes)
"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)
The Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
The more we disagree, the bigger the chance that at least one of us is right.
The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.-- Robert A. Heinlein
"One good turn gets most of the blankets"
Microsoft: Re-inventing the square wheel.
Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.
Renning's Maxim: Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.
Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine.
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
I want to die like my grandfather, peaceful and in my sleep - not screaming like the other people in the car.
"Geologists know how to make the bedrock."
Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
Music is the science of manipulating emotion through sound.-- Angus Gray
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.-- Oscar Wilde
Sometimes you have more perspective than the situation, sometimes the situation has more perspective than you.
No matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature.-- Steven Wright
Arithmetic: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent.
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
People must think I'm a mushroom. They constantly keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."-- G. K. Chesterton
Always behave like a duck: keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.-- Jacob Braude
Aftermath, n: The period following algebra.
He who laughs last found the dirty meaning.
I get my kicks above the .sigline, Sunshine
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
On the internet, no one knows you're a CHICKEN! A GIANT CHICKEN!-- Denis Moskowitz
No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.-- Henry Kissinger
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed."-- Mark Twain
PMS, n: the short period of time when women act like men do all the time.
"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
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.-- Albert Einstein
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
"One person can trigger a million thoughts."
The reward for a job well done is more work.
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.
There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.-- Benjamin Dana
Bathquake, n: The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water faucet is turned on to a certain point.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"They keep saying the right person will come along. I think mine got hit by a truck."
On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.-- Virginia Woolf
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 standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
"God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New--the Jekyll and Hyde of sacred romance."-- Mark Twain
"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
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
"Ergotism is what you get if you overuse the word "therefore". Egotism on the other hand is a form of "I" strain."-- Paul Martin
Occam's eraser: The philosophical principle that even the simplest solution is bound to have something wrong with it.
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
Law of Cat Landing:
A cat will always land in the softest place possible; often the mid-section of an unsuspecting, reclining human.
What is the nature of God? His nature is entirely dependent upon the age or culture that has reinvented him.-- Solomon Skink
Advisor: The guy who told you how to screw up.
Idle hands are the air guitar's playground (Alas)
We shame outselves for the sake of simplicity.
"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)
"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.-- Goethe
"To describe the beating of Egg Whites is almost as cheeky as advising how to lead a happy life."-- The Joy of Cooking
Among economists, the real world is often a special case.-- Horngren
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."-- Groucho Marx
The applied mathematician can find the solution to any difficulty, whilst the pure mathematician can find the difficulty to any solution.
Be the person you needed when you were younger.
Quantum mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
"The most merciful thing in the world...is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."-- H.P. Lovecraft
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.-- Steven Wright
The problem with reality is the lack of background music.
I think it's a beautiful day to go to the zoo and feed the ducks.
To the lions.-- Brian Kantor (the SDM)
It is a good thing to in your mind be able to seperate the artist from the art.
"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."-- Bertrand Russell
Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.
Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."-- Phillips Brooks
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 light at the end of a tunnel may be an oncoming train.
"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 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)
Dante Hicks: Theoretically, people see money on the counter, and no one around, they think they're being watched.
Veronica: Honesty through paranoia. (Clerks)
If the mind were exercised as much as the mouth, we would be a race of geniuses.
If it wasn't for the optimist the pessimist would never know how happy he isn't.
Today was a really, really great day, on the "aaagh fuck me!" scale.-- Steve VanDevender
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.-- Tom Szasz
"News" is just the stuff they use to fill up all the empty space they couldn't sell for advertising.
"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
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: `
Two guys walked into a bar. The third one ducked.
Life is like a dog-sled team; If you ain't the lead dog, the scene never changes.
Because these moments, as precious as they are, they're evil when they're gone.
Democracy according to the NRA: Firearms are necessary to protect individual liberties; most of all the right to own firearms.
Do not go gentle into that good night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.-- Dylan Thomas
"The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."-- Henrik Ibsen
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)
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.
"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
"Bother," said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
Guru, n: A computer owner who can read the manual.
Life is cheap. It's the accessories that kill you.
pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete.
What luck for the rulers that men do not think.-- Adolf Hitler
"That's the trouble with women these days. They act like men and want to be treated like women" (An American in Paris)
Democracy is the form of government where everyone gets what the majority deserves.
Study the past, if you would divine the future.-- Confucius
"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
"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)
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
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
"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
"Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot."
Alimony: the fee a woman charges for name-dropping.
Make the most of yourself, because that's all the self you are going to get, buster.
Kisses are like tears. The only ones that are real are the ones you can't hold back.
"Making the simple complicated is easy. Making the complicated simple is brilliant."
"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."-- Oscar Wilde
"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
"There is nothing wrong with the software that rm won't cure."-- Arnie Romo
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."
"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
How do you know if honesty is the best policy unless you've tried some of the others?
Stenderup's law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.
It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men.-- Mae West
High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.-- Christopher Morley
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons. (Popular Mechanics, March 1949)
A dark past creates a long path back to the surface.
Adventure: The land between entertainment and panic.
Eiffel Tower: The Empire State Building after taxes.
Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!
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
“Love is a drug. It really is. I don’t care who you are, if you’ve got a line on the good stuff, the real stuff that isn’t full of crap, it consumes you. You become it.”-- Amanda Firefox
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
Even if you're paranoid, maybe the guy with the chainsaw really is after you.
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
"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
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.-- Thomas Jefferson
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?-- Dick Cavett
"Make lots of money", "enjoy the work", "operate within the law": choose 2-- Brian Anderson
"If angst were a popsicle, I'd be suckin' the stick."
Music soothes the savage beast. ...unless it's polka.
"Love makes you do the wacky"-- Willow
"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 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.
"If I have any more caffeine, I'm going to end up running down the hallway naked." (Someone on Slashdot)
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.-- Anais Nin
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.-- Steven Wright
We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.
-- Larry Wall
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.
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.
Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have trained for years and years can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
In 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.
If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.-- Kelvin Throop
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
Adolescence, n: The stage between puberty and adultery.
He who laughs last probably didn't understand the joke.
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
"Sometimes the need to mess with their heads outweighs the millstone of humiliation."-- Fox Mulder (The X-Files)
The music is the magic carpet that the other things take naps on.-- Tori Amos
"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
"Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."-- Mark Twain
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?-- Lily Tomlin
"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."
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.-- La Bruyere
"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)
Gina: "Isn't it customary for the suspect to leave the scene of the crime?"
Debra: "Definitely an amateur" (Empire Records)
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)
Aquadextrous, adj: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
The Pet Principle:
No matter which side of the door your dog or cat is on, it is the wrong side.
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
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.-- H. L. Mencken
"Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."-- Mark Twain
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")
"Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear."
Deja moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
It's a joke. Like the funny kind, but different.
War on common sense - I think we actually won that one...
Come, let us retract the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.
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.
Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.-- Tom Stoppard
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.
"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
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
If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh.
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.
Destinesia: The act of entering a room and forgetting why.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff.-- Peter de Vries
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.-- Mark Van Doren
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")
When you look at someone through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. (BoJack Horseman)
The sooner you start to code, the longer the program will take.-- Roy Carlson
"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwile."-- Franklin P. Jones
Answer the phone naked. Callers will hear it in your voice.
Nowadays, originality is the art of concealing your source.
"Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.-- Spiro T. Agnew
"Alcohol is the cause and the solution to many of life's problems."-- Homer Simpson
"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?"
"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
Men are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.-- Moliere
The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down.
In order to become the master the politician poses as the servant.-- Charles De Gaulle
"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
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)
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.-- Henry David Thoreau
Five-step methods are the surest sign of an uninspired plan.
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.
"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy."
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
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
"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)
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
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.
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.)
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."-- Oscar Wilde
"Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex."-- Oscar Wilde
The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.-- Robert Frost
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.
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
Bagdikian's Observation:
Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' on a ukelele.
Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists.
I think if you really like a girl you have to pay a lot of attention to her. But try telling that to those jerks on the jury.-- Dave George
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."-- Theodore Rubin
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.-- Mark Twain
"Here's a horrible thought: You know how dumb the average person is? Well, half the human race is even dumber than that..."
No, you may not speak freely. This is America. We have a high moral hypocrisy to uphold.-- Shannon Thomas Pricket
More to be feared than ignorance is the pretense of knowledge.
This must be morning. I never could get the hang of mornings.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
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")
The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.-- Harlan Ellison
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.-- Tommy Smothers
There are two ways spreading the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.-- Edith Wharton
Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
Sniglet, n: Any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Reason, v.i: To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.-- Ambrose Bierce
He believes in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man who does not understand them.-- George Bernard Shaw
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
"Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world."-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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
If common sense was so common then everyone would have it.-- Steve Giammarco
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.-- Voltaire
"In all our searching, the only thing we found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other" (Contact)
Life is like a grapefruit...it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.-- Ford Prefect
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."-- Bertrand Russell
"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
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
Never underestimate the human capacity for cognitive dissonance.
"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."
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?-- Steven Wright
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
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)
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.-- Paul Beatty
If you can't take the heat, don't tickle the dragon.-- Scott Fahlman
The business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending, the pure joy of consciousness.-- Anais Nin
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
"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
"Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews."-- John Updike
Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.-- Ashleigh Brilliant
Decafalon, n.: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
X.400 is the mail system of the future, and I hope it stays that way.-- Erik Fair
The more things change, the more they stay insane.-- Tom Weller
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.'
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.-- W. Somerset Maugham
No need crying over spilt milk. Unless, of course, you're a truck driver and you just lost nearly 3800 gallons on the interstate - then it's okay to cry.-- Dan Lantz
"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
The BEST part of waking up? Hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep.
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
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."-- Ursula K. Le Guin
All New: The software is not compatible with any previous version.
Oh yeah? You wanna step out of the giant robot and say that again?
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
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
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)
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 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
"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."
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
"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game."-- Paul Rodriguez
"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."-- Oscar Wilde
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."-- Ernest Hemingway
"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."-- Herbert Hoover
"Every man has his follies, and often they are the most interesting thing he has got."-- Josh Billings
"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.
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
"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
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."
"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
Modern times are an awkward spectacle. On the one hand, our public selves compete for scarce window space, for the opportunity to see in and to where power is decided and used. On the other, private life recedes like a glacier, a translucent corner of heaven meant only to be photographed, never settled.-- Revel
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.-- Aldous Huxley
"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
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
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.-- Dandemis
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.
"Question Authority. They usually know where the bathroom is."-- Daria
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 like having a machine called 'elvis' on the network because that way, I can say 'ping elvis' and have it come back with 'elvis is alive'.-- Carl Shipley
"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)
"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)
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.
"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!"
"I don't want to join the kind of a club that accepts people like me as members."-- Groucho Marx
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.-- James Branch Cabell
Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule.-- Friedrich Nietzsche
If you're not part of the freaks, you're part of the boredom.-- Perry Farrell
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
If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses.-- Michael Swaine
"Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them."
Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego.
Insecurity is comparing our behind the scenes to others highlight reel.
You go right on thinking that. Don't let reality stop you.-- dpm
Please do not duck the next time the clue-by-four swings your way.-- Ben Browning
I do not like the man: he has all of the virtues I detest and none of the vices I admire.-- Winston Churchill
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.-- Adlai Stevenson
"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)."
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
"What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary."-- Richard Harkness
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
The principle difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
I'm an apatheist. The question is no longer interesting, and the answer no longer matters.-- petro (a.s.r)
The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.-- Jean Kerr
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
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
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
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.
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."-- Ben Franklin
Cashtration, n.: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
...postmodernity, once the plaything of smarty-pants French guys, in truth belongs to the engagingly stupid. (Newsweek)
What is wanted is not the will to believe but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.-- Bertrand Russell
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)
"The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."-- Victor Hugo
Use the best: Linux for servers, Mac for graphics, Windows for Solitaire.
The goodness of morals depends upon what the morals say, not just the fact that they are morals.-- Rob Bernardo
Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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."
"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
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)
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
Who cares whether the glass is half full or half empty? Shouldn't the question be who's been drinking out of my glass?
"Microsoft is not the problem. Microsoft is the symptom."-- Eric S. Raymond
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
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.
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
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Kinky is when you use the whole chicken.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.-- Steven Wright
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
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
"On the Web we are made out of sentences, and some people insist on showing up hideously deformed."-- livejournal user: vilious
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
Conservative: a man who believes nothing should be done for the first time.
"Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much."
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.-- H. L. Mencken
'Be yourself' is about the worst advice you can give to people.-- Tom Masson
�...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
"Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock."-- New York Times
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
-- Oscar Wilde
"She who has the biggest sword gets to be the biggest bitch."-- Kymberli Morris
Law of Hydrodynamics: When a body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.
As far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.-- Bertrand Russell
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
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
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."-- Michael Sinz
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."-- Donald E. Knuth
"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)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation.
Auntie Em--Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog.-- Dorothy
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.-- Mark Twain
The world, especially for the middle and upper classes, is much more fool-proof then it used to be. A fool-proof environment causes an increase in the number of fools.-- Hillel Gazit
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
"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
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
-- Henry Brooks Adams
"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."-- Friedrick Nietzsche
"The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness."-- Eric Sevareid
"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
"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!'"
"As long as the music's loud enough, we won't hear the world falling apart."-- Derek Jarman
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.-- H. L. Mencken
"Play with each other. Play with yourselves. Just don't play with the squirrels, they bite."
"The biggest disease today isn't leprosy or tuberculosis, but the feeling of being unwanted."-- Mother Theresa
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
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)
"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
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
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
He was just... well, like a lot of madmen. Somewhat accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution. (Kid Radd)
"If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat."-- Mark Twain
"The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me."-- George Bernard Shaw
"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I choose to accept."-- Calvin and Hobbes
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))
"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
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
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)
"Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one."-- James Madison
What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.-- Ursula K. Le Guin
"Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth."-- Mark Van Doren
"Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends."-- S. Weir Mitchell
The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize. (Steel Magnolias)
"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 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
Lottery: A tax on people who don't understand statistics. (As it is statistically much more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery)
Behaviorism is the art of pulling habits out of rats.-- O'Neill
"To live outside the law you must be honest."-- Bob Dylan
Manners are one of the truly lost causes.-- John Simon
I'll say it again for the logic impaired.-- Larry Wall
Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.-- Bill Bulko
As the cheetah said to the chameleon:
You can hide, but you can't run!-- Alan Williams
"The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."-- P. B. Medawar
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.-- Adam Smith
In order to keep anything cultural, logical, or ideological, you have to reinvent the reality of it.-- Ani Difranco
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.-- Edsger Dijkstra
Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.-- Morticia Adams
Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline sharply the minute they start waving guns around?-- Dr. Who
"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read."-- Winston Churchill
Maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be. The door always must be left unlocked.
Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.-- Ed Howe
"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
When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.-- Albert Einstein
Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.
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")
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)
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't make eight cats pull a sled through the snow.
"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)
"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
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
"Mobile phones are the only subject on which men boast about who's got the smallest."-- Neil Kinnock
On-line, adj: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.
Piety, n: Reverence for the Supreme Being, based on His supposed resemblance to man.
"Do you kids want to be like the real UN, or do you want to squabble and waste time?"-- Principal Skinner
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
-- Josh Billings
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.
Cigarette, n: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco inbetween.
America was founded by drug smugglers -- rum was the drug, but smugglers nonetheless.
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head.
"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture"-- Bumper sticker
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.-- Oscar Wilde
"The learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but still 'tis nonsense."-- Benjamin Franklin
Talk to your kids about sex. Tell them just how absolutely incredible it really is. (The Covert Comic)
...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)
Politicians should be changed frequently, like diapers - and for much the same reason.
Q: Why did the astrophysicist order three hamburgers?
A: Because he was hungry.
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)
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.
Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.
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.
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.
"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
"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>)
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)
Sign in a hotel elevator in Paris:
"Please leave your values at the front desk."
"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
The older I get, the more I think you ever learn is either further subtleties, or further distractions.
"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."-- John Adams
The default Magic Word, Abracadabra, actually is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase ha-Bracha dab'ra which means "pronounce the blessing".
In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.-- Albert Camus
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.-- Albert Einstein
"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
Motrin and espresso. The breakfast of champions.-- Sweet Poly
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
"[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?"
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
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.-- Horace Walpole
"Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being."-- John Updike
"Children are like TV sets. When they start acting weird, whack them across the eyes with a big rubber basketball shoe."-- Hunter S. Thompson
"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
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
My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.
-Ashleigh Brilliant
On applause: They named it Ovation from the Latin ovis, a sheep.-- Plutarch
"Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations."-- Machiavelli
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
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
"If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
"Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.-- Abraham Lincoln
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.-- Douglas Adams
"Before I walk out on stage, I set my parameters for the room. It's kind of like a witch with her brew. I decide what I'm bringing to the party that night. And I bring different things with me in every city that I play. But I try and tune myself to the audience out there. And again it's smelling what's cooking in the kitchen. It always comes back to [sniff] a little garlic [sniff] she's got pudding in the oven [sniff]. And then, once you know what that's all about, then you go, [cute face] 'We're gonna bring a little of this tonight.'"-- Tori Amos (Little Earthquakes video)
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
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."
"I am not part of the problem; I am a Republican."-- Dan Quayle
Humor is just another defense against the universe-- Mel Brooks