Lingering Quotes Primum non nocere ( First, do no harm ) That was Zen. This is Tao. - Peter da Silva Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives. - Francis Brett Hart Eschew obfuscation. - Groucho Marx Political parties are potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government. - George Washington "I see!", said the blind carpenter, as he picked up his hammer and saw. - William Shakespeare, MacBeth "Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here? Do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall happen to you." She took them both by the hand, and let them into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and pancakes, with sugar.... - The Brothers Grimm -- Hänsel and Gretel If of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, `It might have been,' More sad are these we daily see: `It is, but hadn't ought to be.' - Francis Brett Hart Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof. - Stephen Jay Gould This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left. - Cambridge University Math Department Illiterate? Write for help! - Peace Corps Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. - Voltaire No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt The Creation of the Universe was made possible by a grant from Texas Instruments. - PBS Nova Truth to Clinton is like the sun to the vampire. - Viewer survey response after the Clinton's grand jury videotape broadcast in CNN, September 21, 1998 I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! Can't prove anything! - Bart Simpson He is grudgingly admired for his Houdini-class escapes. "Our lives replay high school," says a New York City man. "Bill Clinton is the popular kid - athletic, socially adroit, charismatic - who runs afoul of rules. Yet he somehow manages to escape real punishment or taint. Worse, he makes the winning touchdown, delivers the class address and scores with all the babes. Meanwhile, the dutiful, diligent geeks (Republicans) just can't understand the unfairness of it all." - William Safire, January 19 column, the day of the State of Union address, 1999 The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you. - Rita Mae Brown 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. - Ashley Montague Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all its pupils. - Hector-Louis Berlioz We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. - Bill Joy, SUN co-founder, 'Why the future doesn't need us,' Wired, April, 2000 Once the most important inhabitants of a world at the center of the known cosmos, now we human beings had been reduced to the status of the far-flung denizens of a minor, tangential blip on somebody else's universe. - John Boslough I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. - Stephen King The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.) - Daniel Dennett Making fun of born-again christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope. - P. J. O'Rourke The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. - Ann Landers They all laughed at Albert Einstein. They all laughed at Columbus. Unfortunately, they also all laughed at Bozo the Clown. - William H. Jefferys You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long. - Boris Yeltsin Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. - George Will An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. - Somerset Maugham One of the most attractive features of a Connection Machine is the array of blinking lights on the faces of its cabinet. - CM Paris Ref. Manual, v6.0, p48. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. - William Shakespeare, MacBeth I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. - Chang-tzu Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done. - Andy Rooney The best definition of a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion -- but doesn't. - Tom Crichton Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est. [Knowledge is power.] - Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrć: De Hćresibus (1597) Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. - Voltaire Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it. - Richard Feynman The faster we go, the rounder we get. - The Grateful Dead Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of thirty-five. - Joel Hildebrand "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. - Dave Barry Television: A medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done. - Ernie Kovacs I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. - Dave Barry, "The Snake" A light wife doth make a heavy husband. - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice Pluralitas non ponenda est sine necessitate. - Multiplicity is not to be asserted when it is unnecessary. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat would probably be killed, though it can fall safely from the eleventh story of a building, a man is broken, a horse splashes. - J. B. S. Haldane, On Being the Right Size If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? - Albert Einstein Sacred cows make the best hamburger. - Mark Twain Do not look into laser with remaining good eye - Seen on the door to a light-wave lab. The need for regular hard-disk back-up was universally preached and widely neglected. People grew tense and disagreeable: Being unable to get on a given machine meant being cut off from your data, and the death of a PC became a personal tragedy instead of a minor nuisance. - Peter Coffee, 'PC at Work,' PC Week, April 3, 2000 Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Mark Twain Chemistry is physics without thought; mathematics is physics without purpose. - Unknown I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. - Shirley Temple What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death. - Dave Barry If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base. - Dave Barry After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. - H.L. Mencken, on Shakespeare A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. - William James Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. - Pablo Picasso A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library. - Westheimer's Discovery Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. - F. P. Jones Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar. [Traveller, there is no path. Paths are made by walking.] - Antonio Machado A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. - Mark Twain Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. - Eric Hoffer The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad. - Salvador Dali Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. - Dave Barry Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. - Groucho Marx Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. - Groucho Marx It is not enough to succeed; others must fail. - Gore Vidal Men should be like Kleenex; soft, strong and disposable. - Mrs. White, Clue Never trust anybody who says "trust me." Except just this once, of course. - John Varley The Great Roe is a mythological beast with the head of a lion and the body of a lion, though not the same lion. - Woody Allen When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. - Woody Allen Her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak. - Woody Allen It's from Casablanca. I've been waiting all my life to use that line. - Woody Allen, "Play It Again, Sam" Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions. - Woody Allen We made too many wrong mistakes. - Yogi Berra Ed elli a me: "Questo misero modo tegnon l’anime triste di coloro che visser sanza ’nfamia e sanza lodo. Mischiate sono a quel cattivo coro de li angeli che non furon ribelli nĂ© fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sĂ© fuoro. Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli, nĂ© lo profondo inferno li riceve, ch’alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d’elli." The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. - Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Canticle I (Inferno) canto 3, vv 35-42 A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (1978) I wrote a few children's books - not on purpose. - Steven Wright Pizza is a lot like sex. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good. - Woody Allen Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors. - Woody Allen Don't knock masturbation-it's sex with someone I love. - Woody Allen What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. - Woody Allen There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. - Woody Allen Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. - Woody Allen Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage. - Woody Allen What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? - Woody Allen Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. - Woody Allen Subjugated justifications spawn yet another streams of bureaucracy in both directions. About at that moment, everybody already has lost. - Jae Yoon Alas, how love can trifle with itself! - William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil. - Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal!' - Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam in 1959. - Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably -- the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career. - Winning sentence, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.' - Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know. - Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim, 'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh. - Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit molding her body, which was as warm as the seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; she was a woman driven--fueled by a single accelerant--and she needed a man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the right road, a man like Alf Romeo. - Winning sentence, 1988 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Professor Frobisher couldn't believe he had missed seeing it for so long--it was, after all, right there under his nose--but in all his years of research into the intricate and mysterious ways of the universe, he had never noticed that the freckles on his upper lip, just below and to the left of the nostril, partially hidden until now by a hairy mole he had just removed a week before, exactly matched the pattern of the stars in the Pleides, down to the angry red zit that had just popped up where he and his colleagues had only today discovered an exploding nova. - Winning sentence, 1989 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an overdose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center. - Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Sultry it was and humid, but no whisper of air caused the plump, laden spears of golden grain to nod their burdened heads as they unheedingly awaited the cyclic rape of their gleaming treasure, while overhead the burning orb of luminescence ascended its ever-upward path toward a sweltering celestial apex, for although it is not in Kansas that our story takes place, it looks godawful like it. - Winning sentence, 1991 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest As the newest Lady Turnpot descended into the kitchen wrapped only in her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling like a temperamental souffle, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, "I don't know what to make of her." - Winning sentence, 1992 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth note from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a tenth grader drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into my longing arms, and, humming "The Twelfth of Never," I got lucky on Friday the thirteenth. - Winning sentence, 1993 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds, Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless tyrant that mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information superhighway. - Winning sentence, 1994 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Paul Revere had just discovered that someone in Boston was a spy for the British, and when he saw the young woman believed to be the spy's girlfriend in an Italian restaurant he said to the waiter, "Hold the spumoni--I'm going to follow the chick an' catch a Tory." - Winning sentence, 1995 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest "Ace, watch your head!" hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't you know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning. - Winning sentence, 1996 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The moment he laid eyes on the lifeless body of the nude socialite sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper-proof bottle, pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life. - Winning sentence, 1997 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of a piquant, ancho chili glaze enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before him, coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and caramelized onions, and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of vintage balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil; yes, as he surveyed the body of the slain food critic slumped on the floor of the cozy, but nearly empty, bistro, a quick inventory of his senses told corpulent Inspector Moreau that this was, in all likelihood, an inside job. - Winning sentence, 1998 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the greasy, cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley Ruddlethorp wearily trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his wife, sister, brother, and three children were all buried, and forced open the door of his decaying house, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life. - Winning sentence, 1999 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their pints. - Winning sentence, 2000 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona’s ankles, causing her to reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea. - Winning sentence, 2001 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained. - Winning sentence, 2002 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white … Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn’t taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently. - Winning sentence, 2003 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight … summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp’s tail … though the term “love affair” now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism … not unlike “sand vein,” which is after all an intestine, not a vein … and that tarry substance inside certainly isn’t sand … and that brought her back to Ramon. - Winning sentence, 2004 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual. - Winning sentence, 2005 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean. - Winning sentence, 2006 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Gerald began – but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them “permanently” meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee. - Winning sentence, 2007 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J." - Winning sentence, 2008 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor’east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests. - Winning sentence, 2009 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss - a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil. - Winning sentence, 2010 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories. - Winning sentence, 2011 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting. - Winning sentence, 2012 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest She strutted into my office wearing a dress that clung to her like Saran Wrap to a sloppily butchered pork knuckle, bone and sinew jutting and lurching asymmetrically beneath its folds, the tightness exaggerating the granularity of the suet and causing what little palatable meat there was to sweat, its transparency the thief of imagination. - Winning sentence, 2013 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest Every why hath a wherefore. - William Shakespeare, A Comedy of Errors Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. - Henry Brook Adams Do or do not. There is no "try". - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. - George Bernard Shaw In bed the other night my girlfriend asked "if you could know exactly when and where you would die, would you want to?" I said "no". She said, "ok, then forget it". - Steven Wright The worst is not so long as we can say "This is the worst." - William Shakespeare, King Lear I want my children be happy. Happiness comes from the freedom of choice. It can be achieved through the education. - Britanica Encyclopedia Commercial on TV The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round. Usurper. - James Joyce, "Ulysses" To my daughter Leonora without whose never failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been completed in half the time. - P.G. Wodehouse We now present the conclusion of...The Never-ending Story. - From a TV broadcast of the movie "The Never-ending Story" Are tectonic plates dishwasher-safe? - Herb Caen, S. F. Chronicle And envy and pride grew higher and higher in her heart like a weed, so that she had no peace day or night. She called a huntsman, and said: "Take the child away into the forest; I will no longer have her in my sight." - The Brothers Grimm -- Schneewittchen (Snow White) He jests at scars who never felt a wound. - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II. 2 If you judge people, you have no time to love them. - Mother Teresa It is a wise father that knows his own child. - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one day like any other day, only shorter. - Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. - G. K. Chesterton Man creates things since he can not give birth. - Tim Allen The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. - Peter Dunne (Mr. Finley) What! Will the line stretch out to the crack of doom? - William Shakespeare, Macbeth All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. - J. R. R. Tolkien By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly. - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 3,1 Here is a letter, read it at your leisure. - William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice 5,1 It is not the critic who counts, or how the strong man stumbled, or whether the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and who spends himself in a worthy cause, and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who never know either victory or defeat. - Teddy Roosevelt You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. - Sherlock Holmes And as we stand on the edge of darkness Let our chant fill the void That others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. - Egyptian Book of the Dead, ca. 4000 BC. Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly. - William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if one can neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one? - Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow - T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Man Oh, say can you see by dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors. - Woody Allen To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends. My father was a saint, I'm not. - Indira Gandhi Nobody takes a bribe. Of course at Christmas if you happen to hold out your hat and somebody happens to put a little something in it, well, that's different. - New York City Police Commissioner (Ret.) William P. O'Brien, instructions to the force. Sex is dirty only when it's done right. - Woody Allen Hell is empty and all the devils are here. - William Shakespeare, The Tempest People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. - John Kenneth Galbraith The leaves were long, the grass was green, The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, And in the glade a light was seen Of stars in shadow shimmering. Tin'uviel was dancing there To music of a pipe unseen, And light of stars was in her hair, And in her raiment glimmering. There Beren came from mountains colds, And lost he wandered under leaves, And where the Elven-river rolled He walked alone and sorrowing. He peered between the hemlock-leaves And saw in wonder flowers of gold Upon her mantle and her sleeves, And her hair like shadow following. Enchantment healed his weary feet That over hills were doomed to roam; And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, And grasped at moonbeams glistening. Through woven woods in Elvenhome She lightly fled on dancing feet, And left him lonely still to roam In the silent forest listening. - J. R. R. Tolkien Lord, what fools these mortals be! - William Shakespeare, A Midsummer-Night's Dream No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture! - Sherlock Holmes The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. - William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part IV The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round. Usurper. - James Joyce, Ulysses The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. - Albert Einstein The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? - Dave Barry, On Presidential Politics 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. - Doctor Who, Face of Evil This was the most unkindest cut of all. - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Under the wide and starry sky, Dig my grave and let me lie, Glad did I live and gladly die, And laid me down with a will, And this be the verse that you grave for me, Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill. - R. Kipling There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity. - General Douglas MacArthur I can resist everything except temptation. - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) To use violence is to already be defeated. - Chinese proverb Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. I wasted time and now doth time waste me. - William Shakespeare You tread upon my patience. - William Shakespeare, Henry IV We should have a Vollyballocracy. We elect a six-pack of presidents. Each one serves until they screw up, at which point they rotate. - Dennis Miller I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - Francis Bellamy, 1892 There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. - Arthur C. Clarke If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National." - George Will "What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try anyway, George." - D.J. on KSFO/KYA To be loved is very demoralizing. - Katharine Hepburn Again she fled, but swift he came. Tin'uviel! Tin'uviel! He called her by her elvish name; And there she halted listening. One moment stood she, and a spell His voice laid on her: Beren came And doom fell on Tin'uviel That in his arms lay glistening. As Beren looked into her eyes Within the shadows of her hair, The trembling starlight of the skies He saw there mirrored shimmering. Tin'uviel the elven-fair, Immortal maiden elven-wise, About him cast her shadowy hair And arms like silver glimmering. Long was the way that fate them bore, O'er stony mountains cold and grey, Through halls of iron and darkling door, And woods of nightshade morrowless. The Sundering Seas between them lay, And yet at last they met once more, And long ago they passed away In the forest singing sorrowless. - J. R. R. Tolkien The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency. - Albert Einstein Lisp in action is like a finely choreographed ballet. Basic in action is like a waltz of drugged elephants. C in action is like a sword dance on a freshly waxed floor. - Unknown Too much power is almost enough. - Mickey Thopson, piston-powered land speed record holder You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough . - poet William Blacke, Proverbs of Hell But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. - Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" Life is layers of bullshit. You get older, try one of these layer bullshit, and if one fits you, that layer will be your bullshit. - Dustin Hoffman, movie "Hero", talking to his son about the truth of saving passengers from buring airplane. 6/1993 One item could not be deleted because it was missing. - Mac System 7.0b1 error message Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy. - Henry Kissinger Unix is not a "A-ha" experience, it is more of a "holy-shit" experience. - Colin McFadyen A distributed system is one that stops you from getting any work done when a machine you've never even heard of crashes. - Leslie Lamport Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald Knuth When gettting married, women thinks she can change him, men thinks, hopely, she will never change. - Late Talk show - 10/9/92 There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. - C. A. R. Hoare There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar People who take issue with control of population do not understand that if it is not done in a graceful way, nature will do it in a brutal fashion. - H. Kendall At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. - The Washington Post Magazine If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. - John Paul Getty I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know, Where the tree-tops glisten And children listen To hear sleigh bells in the snow. - Irving Berlin But be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. - William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.v University President: "Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers...and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even ask for erasers." - Told by Isaac Asimov 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. - Poul Anderson If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. - Robert Cringely, InfoWorld If you have only a hammer, everything else starts looking like a nail. Subsequently, sooner or later, you'll end up with ten throbbing fingers that no longer can hold your beloved hammer. - Jae Yoon Dear Mr. President: There are too many states. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot. - Abraham "Grandpa" Simpson I will rip your vocal cord off so that you can wear it at your back as a suspender. - Murphy Brown in regard to Dan Qualye/Sept. 21, 1992 (mon); first episode after giving birth to her son Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies. - Bill Bulko After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. - P. J. O'Rourke Goverment has become much more adept at identifying problems than solving them. It has become a collection point for study commissions and consultants, who spend inordinate amounts of time and money quantifying problems that we already know exist. - John Sundvor, Fargo Forum, July 4, 1993 When you come to a fork in the road, take it. - Yogi Berra Ninety percent of the game is half mental. - Yogi Berra "Do you know what Freud said about dreams of flying? It means you're really dreaming about having sex." "Indeed? Tell me, then, what does it mean when you dream about having sex?" - Morpheus and Rose Walker The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. - H. L. Mencken You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition, half of them are even dumber than THAT. - J.R. Dobbs Do not regret growing old; many are denied the privilege. - Ellen Hubbard Death: To stop sinning suddenly. - Ellen Hubbard "Ella, Ella, Ella...Never knock on Death's door. Ring the bell and run away! Death *really* hates that." - Doctor Who "Government is like a shirt. If you don't change it, it stinks." - a dissent, two days before Israeli Prime Minister election, 1991 Those who cast the votes decide nothing, Those who count the votes decide everything. - Josef Stalin The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest, with an axe. - Unknown Open any volume of modern history, and the blood of innocents pours onto your hands. From government policies of starvation to countless varieties of religious wars, the 20th century newspaper is one huge Domesday Book, a catalog of horrors so vast that numbers lose human meaning. One death is a tragedy; millions of deaths are statistics, to be deplored, then filed away as nighmares beyond comprehension. The atrocities nag at our conscience, finally numbing it. Amnesia seems the only solace. - Unknown The only problem with Haiku is that you just get started and then - Unknown Superior communication skills required. Applicant must have the patience of a saint, be security conscious, and like working ridiculous hours. - LAN Administrator Job Offer/PC Week July 13, 1992, 9(28)0/HP Desktop PC Ad. Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere. - Martin Luther King, Jr. Americans [have] a curious ambivalence toward highly public figures who have triumphed within the system. Americans get behind an underdog, but once he/she has reached a point of success, we seen delighted to revel in knocking down the one who succeeds. - John Flood, PC WEEK 'Letters,' 4/24/2000, on DOJ decision on Microsoft's antitrust suit What's the difference between an egg? - Unknown Must I hold a candle to my shames? - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is. - Unknown "Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou has dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has moved amid the world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!" - H. Melville, Moby Dick "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and will kill you. "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. - Dave Barry In capitalism, man exploits man. In Communism, it's exactly the opposite. - Unknown Tennis is like marrying for money. Love has nothing to do with it. - Phyllis Diller [The shooting in Yosemite] would never have happened if we had exercised our right to arm bears. - Unknown (after bodies were found on March 18/25, 1999) Computer can't tell you anything that someone doesn't already know or do anything someone doesn't already know how to do. - Peter Coffee, PC WEEK Somehow, someway, we need to communicate to users that computers, like chain saws, other power tools, and automobiles, will cause massive damage if used without proper planning. I wouldn't think of walking up to a table saw to make a cabinet without having at least a rudimentary sketch. Why should I walk up to a computer and begin programming without knowing that I'm going to build a cabinet? Users need to know that they are the source of knowledge and purpose for every computer program written. Until they realize this responsibility, embrace it, and participate in the development process, they will continue to be victims instead of victors. - Jeff Griffith, Software Engineer, PC WEEK 'Letters' If love is the answer, can you rephrase the question? - Lily Tomlin You mean I can send a mail to myself? - Attendee, Computer workshop for corporate executives A little incompatibility is the spice of life, as long has he has income and she is pattable. - Ogden Nash "The prince wants your daughter for his wife." "Well, tell him his wife can't have her." - Blackadder III Incompetency and opinionedness are always mutually inclusive. - Jae Yoon Let me take you a button-hole lower. - William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost [On the difference between political life and academic life:] In Washington, it's dog eat dog. In academia, it's exactly the opposite. - Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor and Harvard lecturer, on NPR They say that after a brush with death the world looks different and that was true for me, but by the time I caught my breath, I realized that it was because I had lost my glasses. - Michael Dorris Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow. - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 184 I have scaled city walls but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. - U2 The naked, poor, and mangled Peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births. - William Shakespeare, Henry V, Part II Only dead fish go with the flow. However, you're not a fish. - Jae Yoon I think... I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check. - Escher Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties. - Jules Renard A hotel is a place that keeps the manufacturers of 25-watt bulbs in business. - Shelley Berman Sanity is not based on rationale, at all. - Jae Yoon Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances. - RKO executive, reacting to Fred Astaire's screen test, Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" Another interesting facet of humor is that the more intelligent the audience, the more impact humor can have. Humor is a form of hope, a sign of optimism the humans can recognize the diffeence betweenn greatness and mediocrity, and care enough to notice it and to dare people to change. Humor is a tool to cope with the parasitic drag of the world. Dilbert cartoons are the writing on the walls. - Brain Heuckroth, PC WEEK, May 1, 2000 Oh yes, he is such a gentle soul -- with a mind of its own. - Jae Yoon Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. - T.S. Eliot What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. - Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960 I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. - A. Whitney Brown I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry. - Rita Rudner I have taken all knowledge to be my province. - Francis Bacon Politics... Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something. - Plato Because every true believer seeks what only science can bestow: the aura of objective truth. - Amir Alexander, Author of "Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World." Humankind cannot bear very much reality. - T.S. Eliot Great spirits often meet violent opposition with mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein Reality is fundamentally agreement. What we agree to be real is real. - L. Ron Hubbard Technology is the word given to the stuff that doesn't quite work just yet. - Supercomputer designer Danny Hillis Virtue has great power, but not if it is imposed - only when it is chosen. - Dinesh D'Souza Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. - Robert Heinlein We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. - John von Neumann Indivisibles are mathematical atoms, the fundamental building blocks of lines, surfaces and solids. They were paradoxical entities, incompletely understood, and yet led to remarkable results, and ultimately to the mathematical discipline of calculus. To its advocates, this new mathematics put innovation over tradition and pragmatic results over rigid methodology and strict hierarchies. - Amir Alexander, Author of "Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World," Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2014.