Sethi Family Quotations

Quotations...

Grab a comfy chair, sit back, and relax with some quotes that have given us pause to reflect on life, to laugh (at others and ourselves), or to simply be amused...


   "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The
opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
-- Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)


   "In science, one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be
understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before.  But 
in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
-- P.A.M. Dirac, quoted in Suspended In Language: Niels Bohr's Life by Jim Ottaviani


   The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. 
-- Muriel Rukeyser, poet and activist (15 Dec 1913-1980)


   The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we
call them ordinary things.
-- Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author (1805 - 1875)


   Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.
-- Charles Baudelaire, poet, critic, and translator (9 Apr 1821-1867)


   The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness and love.
-- William Wordsworth, __Lyrical Ballads__


   If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement
is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your
[theory] is, it doesn't make a difference how smart you are. If it
disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it. 
-- Richard P. Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988), The Key To Science


   We compute the consequences of the guess... to see what it would imply
and then we compare those computation results to nature or we say
compare to experiment or experience. 
If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.  
It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't
make a difference how smart you are. If it disagrees with experiment,
it's wrong. That's all there is to it. 
-- Richard P. Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988), The Key To Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2xhb-SdK0g


   You see that we are adding a certain amount of guesswork - usually
called "physical intuition" - to our mathematics in order to find the
answer.
-- Richard P. Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988), __Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume II, Chapter 3-4: Heat conduction; the diffusion equation__


   No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for
anyone else. 
-- Charles Dickens, novelist (7 Feb 1812-1870)


   We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are
all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It
just depends on the day.
-- Brad Meltzer, writer


   There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd
been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to
land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended knowing
nothing and no one, not even yourself. 
-- Ann Patchett, writer (b. 2 Dec 1963)


   When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know
peace. 
-- Jimi Hendrix, musician, singer, and songwriter (27 Nov 1942-1970)


   For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it
is the deepest part of autobiography.
-- Robert Penn Warren, novelist and poet (24 Apr 1905-1989)


   Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor
by taking up another. 
-- Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (16 Apr 1844-1924)


   You know how people say you only live once. That's not the truth. You
don't only live once. You only die once. You live every day.
-- Burnell Cotlon, businessman from New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward on PBS StoryCorps, https://storycorps.org/stories/18-years-after-katrina-a-grocer-rebuilds-his-community-one-shop-at-a-time/


   I hold one share in the corporate earth and am uneasy about the
management. 
-- E.B. White, writer (11 Jul 1899-1985)


   The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men
and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating
what other generations have done; men and women who are creative,
inventive, and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not
accept, everything they are offered. 
-- Jean Piaget, psychologist (9 Aug 1896-1980)


   Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you
have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you
use. 
-- Emily Post, author and columnist (27 Oct 1872-1960)


   Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very
foundation of refinement. 
-- William Morris, designer, poet, and novelist (24 Mar 1834-1896)


   The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most
miserable who enjoys the least pleasure. 
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (28 Jun 1712-1778)


   An artist discovers his genius the day he dares not to please. 
-- Andre Malraux, novelist, adventurer, art historian, and statesman (3 Nov 1901-1976)


   Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Poet (1875-1926)


   NSFW:
It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will
be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste. 
-- Evelyn Waugh, novelist (28 Oct 1903-1966)


   The best way to predict the future is to invent it. 
-- Alan Kay, computer scientist (b. 17 May 1940)


   Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor" - infidel to every church
that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that
oppresses the people. 
-- Wendell Phillips, human rights activist and attorney (29 Nov 1811-1884)


   Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where
things are more surprising. There's an element of surprise, and
especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with
the 'Aha'. Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that
there are more contexts than the one that we're in - the one that we
think is reality. 
-- Alan Kay, computer scientist (b. 17 May 1940)


   "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
you do it."
-- Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)


   I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-- "Ozymandias", Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)


   Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable
can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they
become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people
we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.
-- Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers")


   Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not
original and the part that is original is not good.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)


   Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly.  An aide once asked him
how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just last week.
The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better.
-- Anonymous


   Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not. 
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize
winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen.  He was amazed to find that
over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the
open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not
let it spill out).  The American said with a nervous laugh,
"Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck,
do you, Professor Bohr?  After all, as a scientist --"
Bohr chuckled.
"I believe no such thing, my good friend.  Not at all.  I am
scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense.  However, I am told
that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not."
-- Lewis Wolpert and __Bits & Pieces__, September 17, 1992, p. 6


   Experience, n.:
Something you don't get until just after you need it
-- Steven Wright


   What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each
other? 
-- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)


   The past is never where you think you left it. 
-- Katherine Anne Porter, writer and activist (15 May 1890-1980


   Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth. 
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)


   The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits,
but not when it misses. 
-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)


   You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything
away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no
longer in your power - he's free again. 
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)


   "Lots of people will come at you, you know, and how you respond to
them has a lot to do with how you respond in life.  And I was the one
who puffed up when somebody puffed up at me.  Now they puff up at me
and I laugh.  Because it's better for me."
-- Whoopi Goldberg on __The View__ (2011-04-12)


   In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are
consequences. 
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)


   The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every
right that he claims for himself. 
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)


   The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things
tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good
sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to
burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion
obviously demanded that they should burn none at all. 
-- Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, dramatist, and Nobel laureate (29 Aug 1862-1949)


   The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for
experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute
for intelligence.
-- Lyman Bryson


   We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. 
-- Edward R. Murrow, journalist (25 Apr 1908-1965)


   Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   QOTD:
A child of 5 could understand this! Fetch me a child of 5.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you
lack sufficient imagination.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and
tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will
have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy... neither its pipes nor
its theories will hold water.
-- John William Gardner


   Re: Graphics:
A picture is worth 1000 words - but only those to describe
the picture.  Hardly any sets of 1000 words can be adequately
described with pictures.
-- Alan Perlis


   Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you,
and just before you realize what is wrong with it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
-- Woody Allen


   I don't want to achieve immortality through my work.  I want to achieve
immortality through not dying.
-- Woody Allen


   I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
-- Woody Allen


   To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the loyal opposition.
-- Woody Allen


   If I have one message to give to the secular American people, its that
the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided
between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know
each other, but we talk together and we understand each other
perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much
bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference
between me and my government is much bigger than the difference
between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.
-- Marjane Satrapi (1969 - ), Iranian-born French graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author, https://tblooming.blogspot.com/2012/02/quote-of-day-marjane-satrapi-on-east.html


   My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of
the entire earth on it. On the back it said: Wish you were here.
-- Steven Wright


   Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and
long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his
pain and his aloneness without regret?
-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.  And now you know why.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A gangster assembled an engineer, a chemist, and a physicist.  He explained
that he was entering a horse in a race the following week and the three
assembled guys had the job of assuring that the gangster's horse would win.
They were to reconvene the day before the race to tell the gangster how they
each propose to ensure a win.  When they reconvened the gangster started with
the engineer:
Gangster: OK, Mr. engineer, what have you got?
Engineer: Well, I've invented a way to weave metallic threads into the saddle
blanket so that they will act as the plates of a battery and provide
electrical shock to the horse.
G:        That's very good!  But let's hear from the chemist.
Chemist:  I've synthesized a powerful stimulant that disolves
into simple blood sugars after ten minutes and therefore
cannot be detected in post-race tests.
G:        Excellent, excellent!  But I want to hear from the physicist before
I decide what to do.  Physicist?  
Physicist: Well, first consider a spherical horse in simple harmonic motion...
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Laugh when you can; cry when you must.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
-- Alan Perlis


   If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had
lost his senses.  When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   One seldom sees a monument to a committee.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Life may have no meaning.  Or, even worse, it may have a meaning of
which I disapprove.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant, English Author and Cartoonist, (1933-)


   Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


   "Some fellows pay a compliment like they expected a receipt." 
-- Kin Hubbard, humorist (1868-1930)


   What is mind?  No matter.  What is matter?  Never mind.
-- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875


   If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
-- Abraham Maslow, Psychologist (1908-1970)


   The scene: in a vast, painted desert, a cowboy faces his horse.
Cowboy: "Well, youve been a pretty good hoss, I guess. Hardworkin.
Not the fastest critter I ever come acrost, but..."
Horse:  "No, stupid, not feed*back*.  I said I wanted a feed*bag*."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second,
a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken
the first step.  With every additional step you enhance immensely the value
of your first. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


   NSFW:
There is not much to choose between a woman who deceives us for another,
and a woman who deceives another for ourselves.
-- Emile Augier, French Dramatist (1820-1889)


   NSFW:
Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind
would believe.
-- Lou Derman and Milt Josefsberg writing for Archie Bunker in __All in the Family__ s06e05 "Mike's Pains"


   NSFW:
Billionaires need the working class. The working class does not need
billionaires. 
-- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Congress member (b. Oct 13, 1989)


   Life Sucks.  Cynical, misanthropic male, 34, looking for soul mate but
certain not to find her.  Drop me a note.  I'll call you, we'll talk and
I'll ask you out to dinner where I'll probably spend more than I can
afford in a feeble attempt to impress you.  Then we'll realize we have
absolutely nothing in common and we'll go our separate ways, more
embittered and depressed than before (if such a thing is possible).
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - 
I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914),  The Devil's Dictionary


   "Tell the truth and run."
-- Yugoslav proverb


   On-line, adj.:
The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.
-- Benjamin Disraeli


   You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and
finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us.  "He is full of
murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by
their ignorance the hard way."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cats Cradle"


   It is far better to be deceived than to be undeceived by those we love.
-- Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld, French philanthropist (1613 - 1680)


   A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
-- William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)


   Actor                   Real Name
Boris Karloff           William Henry Pratt
Cary Grant              Archibald Leach
Edward G. Robinson      Emmanual Goldenburg
Gene Wilder             Gerald Silberman
John Wayne              Marion Morrison
Kirk Douglas            Issur Danielovitch
Richard Burton          Richard Jenkins Jr.
Roy Rogers              Leonard Slye
Woody Allen             Allen Stewart Konigsberg
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It would be illogical to kill without reason.
-- Spock, Star Trek, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4, Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana


   Immortality consists largely of boredom.
-- Zefrem Cochrane, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8, written by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon


   NSFW:
Spock: That unit is a woman. 
Nomad: A mass of conflicting impulses.
-- Star Trek, "The Changeling"


   Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
-- Sir Walter Raleigh


   The hardest thing is to disguise your feelings when you put a lot of
relatives on the train for home.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It's bad enough that life is a rat-race, but why do the rats always
have to win? 
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants,
today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
-- Dave Barry


   Time and tide wait for no man.
-- Geoffrey Chaucer, Poet (1343-1400)


   NSFW:
Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.
-- Bergan Evans


   Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
What one fool can do, another can.
-- Ancient Simian Proverb


   He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
-- Voltaire, philosopher (21 Nov 1694-1778)


   It is lamentable that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy
of the rest of mankind.
-- Voltaire, philosopher (21 Nov 1694-1778)


   What is tolerance? - it is the consequence of humanity.  We are all formed
of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -
that is the first law of nature.
-- Voltaire


   The superfluous is very necessary.
-- Voltaire


   "This is no time to make new enemies."
-- Voltaire, when asked on his deathbed to renounce Satan


   "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
-- Voltaire


   A witty saying proves nothing.
-- Voltaire


   If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days
and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to
think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate.
-- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia"


   NSFW:
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. 
-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)


   It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
-- Voltaire, writer (1694-1778)


   One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.
-- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)


   Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities.
-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)


   Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock
strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians
to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome
and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no
one starts lawsuits over their wills. 
-- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)


   The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures
the disease. 
-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)


   To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed
to criticize. 
-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)


   Love truth, but pardon error. 
-- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)


   The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know
nothing.
-- Voltaire


   Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.
-- Voltaire, philosopher (21 Nov 1694-1778)


   Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to
conceal their thoughts.
-- Voltaire


   NSFW:
Never eat at a place called Mom's.  
Never play cards with a man named Doc.
And never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.
-- Nelson Algren, "What Every Young Man Should Know"


   It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a
statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious
to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look,
which morally we can do.  To affect the quality of the day, that is the
highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details,
worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"


   Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
-- Indian proverb


   Mathematics is the only science where one never knows what 
one is talking about nor whether what is said is true.
-- Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)


   Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't
they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning
anything?  If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five
years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.
-- The Best of Will Rogers


   Life is a series of rude awakenings.
-- R.V. Winkle


   A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   That government is best which governs least.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"


   Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of
watching television."
-- Cal Keegan


   NSFW:
"An honest god is the noblest work of man.  ... God has always resembled his
creators.  He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably
found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with
sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine
perfume."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll


   "A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
-- Mandelbrot, _The Fractal Geometry of Nature_


   The wise man seeks everything in himself; the ignorant man tries to get
everything from somebody else.
-- Anonymous


   Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the
old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent
I can find for "landskap").  These laws were written down sometime in the
13th century, but date back even down into Viking times.  The oldest one is
the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some
Christian stuff.  In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the
Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc.  Here is
an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of
"lekare".
"If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it.  If an artist
is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with
fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring
it out on the hillside.  Then they shall shave off all hair from the
heifer's tail, and grease the tail.  Then the artist shall be given
newly greased shoes.  Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail,
and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip.  If he can hold her, he
shall have the animal.  If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what
he received, shame and wounds."
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
Every now and then, when your life gets complicated and the weasels start
closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then
drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at
top volume and at least a pint of ether.
-- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"


   "One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer
terror."
-- W. K. Hartmann


   Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who's
selling fear. 
-- Mary Doria Russell, science-fiction writer (b. 19 Aug 1950)


   The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they seem to believe that
for a group of people to behave in a way detrimental to the common good
requires intent.
-- Anonymous


   * All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
* When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
* Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
* A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles.
* Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally.
* Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony.
* Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Q:      Why haven't you graduated yet?
A:      Well, Dad, I could have finished years ago, but I wanted
my dissertation to rhyme.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10 doctors agree
that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Be nice to people on the way up, because you'll meet them on your way down.
-- Wilson Mizner


   Remember...
'tis better to have loved and lost 
than to live with a psycho for the rest of your life!
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand
years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man
is and will always be a wild animal.
-- Charles Galton Darwin


   Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
-- Isaac Newton, Mathematician and Physicist (1642 - 1727)


   Money is its own reward.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   How can you think and hit at the same time?
-- Yogi Berra


   "Ninety percent of baseball is half mental."
-- Yogi Berra


   If the master dies and the disciple grieves, the lives of both have
been wasted.
-- Anonymous


   To err is human, to moo bovine.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the
last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security
or insecurity of locks.  Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus-
sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a
premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest.  This is a fal-
lacy.  Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more
than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery.  Rogues knew
a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them-
selves, as they have lately done.  If a lock - let it have been made in what-
ever country, or by whatever maker - is not so inviolable as it has hitherto
been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know
this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to
apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to
give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance.  It cannot be too ear-
nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better
for all parties."
-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks,
published around 1850


   I was working on a case.  It had to be a case, because I couldn't afford a
desk.  Then I saw her.  This tall blond lady.  She must have been tall
because I was on the third floor.  She rolled her deep blue eyes towards
me.  I picked them up and rolled them back.  We kissed.  She screamed.  I
took the cigarette from my mouth and kissed her again.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Stamp out organized crime!!  Abolish the IRS.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   [Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
vices I admire.
-- Winston Churchill


   Your mode of life will be changed to ASCII.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   kernel, n.:
A part of an operating system that preserves the medieval
traditions of sorcery and black art.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The door is the key.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had
been different in the past.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised
when others believe him.
-- Charles DeGaulle


   The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint
has a past and every sinner has a future.
-- Oscar Wilde


   Confession is good for the soul, but bad for the career.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
-- Robert Frost, "The Death of the Hired Man"


   "The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is
that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust."
-- Samuel Butler, English novelist, essayist, and critic, (1835-1902)


   If all else fails, lower your standards.
-- Anonymous


   You can always tell the people that are forging the new frontier.
They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Don't tell me that worry doesn't do any good.  I know better.  The things
I worry about don't happen.
-- Watchman Examiner


   Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were
driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out.  They screamed down the
mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by
luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged
rocks.  They all got out of the car:
The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it."
The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it
into town and have a specialist look at it."
The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back
in and see if it does it again."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   We are all worms.  But I do believe I am a glowworm.
-- Winston Churchill


   NSFW:
Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both.
-- Samuel Butler, English novelist, essayist, and critic, (1835-1902)


   Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today -
I think he's from the CIA.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   If you wish to be happy for one hour, get drunk.
If you wish to be happy for three days, get married.
If you wish to be happy for a month, kill your pig and eat it.
If you wish to be happy forever, learn to fish.
-- Chinese Proverb


   Do you wish the world were happy?
Then remember day by day, 
Just to scatter seeds of kindness 
As you pass along the way. 
-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (5 Nov 1850-1919)


   In Hollywood, all marriages are happy.  It's trying to live together
afterwards that causes the problems.
-- Shelley Winters


   A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating
his morning meal.  "I would like to give you this personality test", said
the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the
toaster: "I wish the toaster to be happy too".
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but
otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the
world.
-- Paul Dudley White, physician (1886-1973)


   A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. 
-- Robert Quillen, journalist and cartoonist (1887-1948)


   We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the
same. 
-- Carlos Castenada, mystic and author (1925-1998)


   You'll learn something about men and women - the way they're supposed
to be.  Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good
to each other.  That's what we call love.  You'll like that a lot.
-- Kirk, "The Apple", Star Trek, stardate 3715.6


   "The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from
common things." 
-- Henry Ward Beecher


   There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or
augment our means - either will do - the result in the same; and it is
for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the
easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be to
diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are
active and prosperous or young and in good health, it may be easier for
you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are
wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor,
sick or well; and if you are very wise you will do both in such a way as
to augment the general happiness of society. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   To you guys: take the time that you have and live it for the best that
you can. And this decision you're going to make, don't base it on
being angry. I was so angry for what they did. Because I want to sit
there; I want that more than anything. And I would die to be there.
But it takes a lot more energy to be angry about what happened in this
game. And it's a lot easier to smile, and to forgive, and to be happy.
So that's what I'm going to say: I forgive you.
-- Katrina "Kat" R. Edorsson, __Survivor: One World__ (2012-05-13)


   I am really very happy that I have this beautiful old world to live in.
-- Margaret Dunning (b. 1910), 2012-09-28: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/102-old-gets-full-ride-000820672.html


   How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesnt care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.
-- Emily Dickinson; Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series; Roberts Brothers; 1891.


   It's far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.
-- Marilyn Monroe, actress (1 Jun 1926-1962)


   As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy
death. 
-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)


   In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things
are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it;
and they must have a sense of success in it. 
-- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)


   I love being happy. I love getting up and, in spite of things starting
rough today, I'm still happy. I think I'm finally understanding that
happiness is a choice. Life happens; sometimes it goes the way you
want, sometimes it doesn't, but why waste even one day with the ones
you love by being grumpy or mad. Why not give the ones you love the
best of you everyday? Today is going to be a good day!
-- Talia Garcia Murray, 2012-12-02 on Facebook


   This is what Epicurus says is happiness: 
* Friendship is number 1.  It's more important whom you eat with than
what you eat. 
* Number 2 is freedom from the prison of everyday affairs and
politics.  Freedom from oppression. I suppose if you live in a
dictatorship you have less freedom; if you don't have personal
freedom, people are telling you what to do, you hate your job, your
boss is oppressive, you don't have freedom, you're not happy. 
* Number 3: thought; rational thinking, free from anxiety, and knowing
yourself.  
Those are the criteria he used.  Interesting.
-- Joy Behar paraphrasing Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE) on __The View__ (2007-12-04)


   NSFW:
I have replaced my inner critical voice with Fred Armisen's impression 
of Joy Behar saying "So what? Who cares?" and it is really fucking 
working.
-- A quote about The View co-host Joy Behar, https://twitter.com/caissie/status/1333975125805330433?lang=en


   NSFW:
"Happiness is submission to God-ZILLA"
-- Alteration of a sign (http://i.imgur.com/rogN7.jpg) painted on the side of a house in Tucson, AZ http://wikimapia.org/10523999/Happiness-is-Submission-to-God-house


   NSFW:
"Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many 
men happy."
-- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage


   NSFW:
Most people would rather be CERTAIN they're miserable, than RISK being
Happy. 
-- Robert Newton Anthony


   NSFW:
By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you
get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
-- Socrates


   On a tous un peu peur de l'amour, mais on a surtout peur de souffrir
ou de faire souffrir.
[One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of
pain or causing pain.] 
-- Anonymous


   A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance
of turning around three times before lying down.
-- Robert Benchley


   NSFW:
You can have a dog as a friend.  You can have whiskey as a friend.  But
if you have a woman as a friend, you're going to wind up drunk and kissing
your dog.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Early to bed and early to rise and you'll be groggy when everyone else is
wide awake.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Remember thee
Aye, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe.  Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there.
-- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"


   If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical
world.  One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by
the use of the mathematics of probability.
-- Vannevar Bush


   Laws of Computer Programming:
(1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
(2) Any given program costs more and takes longer.
(3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
(4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
(5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.
(6) The value of a program is proportional the weight of its output.
(7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of
the programmer who must maintain it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
-- Anonymous


   Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the
end of it, and others do just the same with their time. 
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (28 Aug 1749-1832)


   That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love,
that no one could have loved so before us, and that no one will love
in the same way as us.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


   To teach is to learn twice.
-- Joseph Joubert


   "The subspace W inherits the other 8 properties of V. And there aren't
even any property taxes."
-- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b


   NSFW:
Women give themselves to God when the Devil wants nothing more to do with them.
-- Sophie Arnould, French operatic soprano (1740 - 1802)


   Marriage is a lot like the army, everyone complains, but you'd be
surprised at the large number that re-enlist.
-- James Garner


   I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less
than half of you half as well as you deserve.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien


   If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it
would be a merrier world.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien


   The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April
1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above
the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps.  Members will grep
each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered
chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek
nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od.  Three
days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo.  Two
seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user-
friendly features of Unix.  Seminars include "Everything You Know is
Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis
"cc C?  Si!  Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You
Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats.  No Reader Service No. is necessary because
all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we
could tell them.
-- "Get GUMMed," Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84


   QOTD:
"This is a one line proof... if we start sufficiently far to the
left."
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
Religion is the best defense against a religious experience.
-- Carl G. Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)


   Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge.
-- Carl G. Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)


   Goldenstern's Rules:
(1) Always hire a rich attorney
(2) Never buy from a rich salesman.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Succumb to natural tendencies.  Be hateful and boring.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been
dead for two years.
-- Tom Lehrer, American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician


   If puns were deli meat, this would be the wurst.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance.  He of all men
should behave as though the law compelled him.  But it is the universal
weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine
we own.
-- H.G. Wells


   Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to
stick to one thing till it gets there.
-- Josh Billings


   There once was a man who went to a computer trade show.  Each day as
he entered, the man told the guard at the door:
"I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting.  Be
forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered."
This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions
of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully.
But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself.
When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes,
but nothing was to be found.
On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the
guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even
better."  So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail.
On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his
curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live
in peace.  Please enlighten me.  What is it that you are stealing?"
The man smiled.  "I am stealing ideas," he said.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"


   If you don't know what game you're playing, don't ask what the score is.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Prison Vs. Work Debate
IN PRISON..you spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell.
AT WORK..you spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.
IN PRISON..you get three meals a day.
AT WORK..you only get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.
IN PRISON..you get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK..you get rewarded for good behavior with more work.
IN PRISON..a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK..you must carry around a security card and unlock and open
all the doors yourself.
IN PRISON..you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK..you get fired for watching TV and playing games.
IN PRISON..you get your own toilet.
AT WORK..you have to share.
IN PRISON..they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK..you cannot even speak to your family and friends.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
-- Robert Benchley, Actor, author, and humorist (1889 - 1945)


   If you've got a production designer, don't get in their way. If you've
got a makeup artist, don't get in their way. They're there for a reason,
and they're there to join the community and offer what their skill is.
I think there's too much control that goes on. Because control is the
death of any art form, because it's not about control, it's about
things that flow, things that move, you know?
-- Brian Cox, Actor (b. 1946), on collaborative artwork like directing, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/brian-cox-says-cinema-very-174759523.html


   NSFW:
He thinks if I read science books that I'm going to hell. [I would]
rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints ... the sinners
are much more fun. And a lot more interesting than some book-burner
who is still having growing pains. I am at peace with God. Kirk thinks
people like me are going to Hell, if I do then at least I'll go well
informed and well read.
-- Julie McCullough, Actor, on the controversy with her co-star Kirk Cameron of __Growing Pains__, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_McCullough


   The garden is in mourning;
The rain falls cool among the flowers.
Summer shivers quietly
On its way towards its end.
Golden leaf after leaf
Falls from the tall acacia.
Summer smiles, astonished, feeble,
In this dying dream of a garden.
For a long while, yet, in the roses,
She will linger on, yearning for peace,
And slowly
Close her weary eyes.
-- Hermann Hesse, "September"


   I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of
years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest
inconvenience from it.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; 
every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; 
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, 
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy
friends or of thine owne were; 
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; 
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 
-- John Donne, poet (1573-1631)


   Suchness is neither that which is existence, nor that which is
nonexistence, nor that which is at once existence and nonexistence,
nor that which is not at once existence and nonexistence. 
-- Ashvaghosha (80 - 150 CE)


   Did it ever occur to you that fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?
Or that we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   You have taken yourself too seriously.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Only two kinds of witnesses exist.  The first live in a neighborhood where
a crime has been committed and in no circumstances have ever seen anything
or even heard a shot.  The second category are the neighbors of anyone who
happens to be accused of the crime.  These have always looked out of their
windows when the shot was fired, and have noticed the accused person standing
peacefully on his balcony a few yards away.
-- Sicilian police officer


   NSFW:
My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa.  Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa.  Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule:  Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00.  Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30.  Now Africa is full of big game.  The first day I shot two bucks.  That
was the biggest game we had.  Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions.  And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water.  They
weren't looking for a water hole.  They were looking for an alck hole.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know.  Then we tried to remove the tusks.  That's a tough
word to say, tusks.  As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out.  But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,
but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
-- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]


   NSFW:
If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who wore fur
boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him.
-- Anton Chekhov


   In most instances, all an argument proves is that two people are
present.
-- Tony Petito


   NSFW:
"Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all...."
-- Thomas J. Kopp


   To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
-- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (III.i.55)


   The end of labor is to gain leisure.
-- Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE)


   "...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
vexed.  "That's what the name is called.  The name really is, 'The Aged
Aged Man.'"
"Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing!  The song is
called 'Ways and Means':  but that's only what it is called you know!"
"Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said.  "The song really is
"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"


   The  White Rabbit put on his spectacles.
"Where shall  I  begin, please your Majesty ?" he asked.
"Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on
till you come to the end: then stop."
-- Lewis Carroll


   NSFW:
Women who want to be equal to men lack imagination.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
ingenious. 
-- Edsel Murphy


   NSFW:
It is impossible to defend perfectly against the attack of those who want
to die.
-- Anonymous


   better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole > town
cat /etc/passwd > list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus < north pole > town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep bad || good
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}
-- Your Daily Fortune


   To lead people, you must follow behind.
-- Lao Tsu


   Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to
examine the laws of heat.
-- Christopher Morley


   There are three ingredients to the good life: learning, earning, and
yearning. 
-- Christopher Morley, writer (5 May 1890-1957)


   NSFW:
"The fact of the matter is that the fossil record not only documents
evolution, but that it was the fossil record itself which forced natural
scientists to abandon their idea of the fixity of species and look
instead for a plausible mechanism of change, a mechanism of evolution.
The fossil record not only demonstrates evolution in extravagant detail,
but it dashes all claims of the scientific creationists concerning the
origin of living organisms."
-- Kenneth R. Miller, "Scientific Creationism versus Evolution" Science and Creationism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 22.


   "Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts." 
-- Vice President J. Danforth Quayle


   "Well, evolution is a theory.  It is also a fact.  And facts and
theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing
certainty.  Facts are the world's data.  Theories are structures of
ideas that explain and interpret facts.  Facts don't go away when
scientists debate rival theories to explain them.  Einstein's theory of
gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend
themselves in midair, pending the outcome.  And humans evolved from ape-
like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by
some other yet to be discovered."
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"


   NSFW:
"We cannot disprove beliefs like these, especially if it is assumed 
that God took care that his interventions always closely mimicked 
what would be expected from evolution by natural selection.  All that
we can say about such beliefs is, firstly, that they are superfluous
and, secondly, that they assume the existence of the main thing we
want to explain, namely organized complexity.  The one thing 
that makes evolution such a neat theory is that it explains how 
organized complexity can arise out of primeval simplicity."
-- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986), p. 316.


   "Mi verso es un ciervo herido; Que busca en el monte amparo."
[My poems are like a wounded fawn; seeking refuge in the mountains.]
-- Jose Marti, Guantanamera


   "Mi verso es de un verde claro; Y de un carmin encendido."
[My poems are soft green; my poems are also flaming crimson.]
-- Jose Marti, Guantanamera


   "El arroyo de la sierra; Me complace mas que el mar."
[The stream of the mountain; pleases me more than the sea.]
-- Jose Marti, Guantanamera


   NSFW:
"Now we know the other side advocates intelligent design as a primary
characteristic of intelligent design when it is squared with the fossil
record.  The fossil record - and I can give you specific examples - is
characertized best by sequences of appearances and disappearances.  Now
think what that means.  What that means is that the characteristic that
best describes the intelligent designer who would have designed this 
fossil record is incompetent because everything the intelligent designer
designed, with about one percent exceptions, has immediately become
extinct.  Intelligent design has no explanation for the successive 
character in the fossil record, evolution has a perfect explanation, 
and that is the appearance of new forms and the extinction of others."
-- Ken Miller in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, p. 22.


   NSFW:
Here's the crux of my argument for why you should not trust me. The
main thing is, I know nothing. I don't know a goddamn thing. And yet,
I have a lot of strong opinions about shit.
-- Kurt Braunohler, American comedian, __Theres No Good Reason to Climb Mount Everest__ (2019)


   NSFW:
"This is ri-god-damn-diculous"
-- Mr. John Wayne (aka Marion Robert Morrison)


   "In the November7th or November 14th issue of Science magazine, a 
number of investigators wanted to test the Darwinian hypothesis that you
folks say is never tested, and the way in which they did this was to take
the receptor protein for the human growth hormone - it's a receptor to
which the human growth hormoe fits in precisely - and they did a terrible
genetic disservice.  They mutated - they cut out an essential amino acid
right in the middle of the receptor, called tryptophan.  With that gone,
just like that mousetrap, it wouldn't have been expected to work.  They
then allowed a natural selection process to take place to see whether the
cells under their own observation could mutate the receptor gene
sufficiently to bind the receptor, and after seven generations, lo and
behold, there it was.  It illustrates beautifully the ability of natural
selection to respond to mutations in proteins to co-evolve."
-- Ken Miller in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, p. 25.


   NSFW:
"What about complex parasites?  Did this designer design complex 
parasites or is that evolution?  I mean, you get all the good things 
and evolutionists get all the bad things."
-- Michael Ruse in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, p. 35.


   NSFW:
"To reject the idea that chance is something that could be used by the
divine is to limit the power of the divine considerably."
-- Barry Lynn in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, p. 36.


   NSFW:
"Do you know the mind of God so well that you could rule out the 
possibility that God conceived evolution as the process to bring His
design to fruition? [...] The truth is that if you are saying that you
cannot imagine that a God could be that creative, that imaginative, 
then aren't you limiting in a very severe fashion your construct of
God?"
-- Barry Lynn in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, pp. 36-37.


   "I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." 
-- Vice President J. Danforth Quayle to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/89


   NSFW:
"Mr. Behe has of course compared, like it or not, compared the 
extraordinary complexity of the human cell to the mousetrap.  He said if
we look at that mousetrap, it was created by a human.  In fact, Mr. 
Miller improved on it, as you saw earlier tonight.  Therefore, if that's
complicated, then indeed the cell must also have been designed by an 
intelligence.  And as I thought about it tonight, it's a little bit -
we were all talking about nature analogies - it's a little bit like
looking at a mole build a molehill.  You say, That's very interesting.  
Then we walk out in the woods the next day and we notice a big mountain
off in the distance.  And we say, Good grief, that's enormously large.  A
really big mole must have built that.  The truth of the matter is, it's
not logical.  We should be looking for different forces that result in
different things.  Your mousetrap was built by human hands because its 
components are inanimate objects.  Cellular life is living, vibrant,
breathing, changing matter.  You're not just comparing apples to oranges,
you are comparing plastic apples to organic oranges, and I think 
therefore this analogy fails."
-- Ken Miller in "Resolved: That evolutionists should acknowledge creation" _Firing Line_, 4 December 1997, p. 50.


   If people are good only because they fear punishment,
and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
-- Albert Einstein


   A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of
success combined with constant restlessness.
-- Albert Einstein, note to a messenger at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan, https://www.livescience.com/61031-einstein-theory-of-happiness.html


   I try to take one day at a time... but lately several days have
attacked me at once.
-- Steven Wright


   "In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that
it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that
apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not
merit equal time in physics classrooms."
-- Stephen J. Gould


   NSFW:
"As long as there are tests, there will always be prayer in
schools." 
-- Melissa Anderson


   If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains
the same, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron's position
changes with time, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron is
at rest, we must say "no"; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must
say "no". 
-- Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)


   NSFW:
"Science has proof without any certainty.
Creationists have certainty without any proof"
-- Ashley Montagu (1905-1999)


   NSFW:
Violence stinks, no matter which end of it you're on.  But now and then
there's nothing left to do but hit the other person over the head with a
frying pan.  Sometimes people are just begging for that frypan, and if we
weaken for a moment and honor their request, we should regard it as
impulsive philanthropy, which we aren't in any position to afford, but
shouldn't regret it too loudly lest we spoil the purity of the deed.
-- Tom Robbins


   What we do not understand we do not possess.
-- Goethe


   Be different: conform.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The most difficult years of marriage are those following the wedding.
-- Anonymous


   Every man is apt to form his notions of things difficult to be apprehended,
or less familiar, from their analogy to things which are more familiar.
Thus, if a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk
only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other
subject; it is well known, that the language and the notions proper to his
own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured
by the rules of navigation: and if he should take it into his head to
philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted,
but he would draw his notions from the fabric of the ship, and would find
in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass.
-- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764


   Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
-- Albert Einstein


   Always think of something new; this helps you forget your last rotten idea.
-- Seth Frankel


   It is impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised.
-- Anonymous


   To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly
strip down your words to naked, willing flesh.
Then bind them to a metaphor or three,
and take by force a satisfying mesh.
Arrange them to your will, each foot in place.
You are the master here, and they the slaves.
Now whip them to maintain a constant pace
and rhythm as they stand in even staves.
A word that strikes no pleasure?  Cast it out!
What use are words that drive not to the heart?
A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt,
and choose more docile words to take its part.
A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain,
by making love directly to the brain.
-- Anonymous


   If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
are 50-50 it will.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Quantity is no substitute for quality, but its the only one we've got.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
-- Leon Trotsky, Russian Marxist, intellectual, and revolutionary (1879-1940)


   perfect guest:
One who makes his host feel at home.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Too much is just enough.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910) on Whiskey


   This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
-- William Shakespeare, Polonius in Hamlet, (I.iii.78)


   A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
-- Gloria Steinem


   All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky,
to the future.  Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing.
-- Yoda


   The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of four
and eighteen.  At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all the answers.
-- Anonymous


   To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn
old falsehoods.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love"


   Aphasia:
Loss of speech in social scientists when asked
at parties, "But of what use is your research?"
-- Your Daily Fortune


   'On this point we want to be perfectly clear: socialism has nothing to do
with equalizing.  Socialism cannot ensure conditions of life and 
consumption in accordance with the principle "From each according to his 
ability, to each according to his needs."  This will be under communism.
Socialism has a different criterion for distributing social benefits:
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."'
-- Mikhail Gorbachev, _Perestroika_


   "Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on society's
whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges,
and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed
would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are
applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool."
--  John J. Miller; And Hope to Die, in Jokertown Shuffle Wild Cards IX


   "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he
grows up."
-- Pablo Picasso


   "A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight and his punishment
is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
-- Oscar Wilde


   "A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words
become superfluous."
-- Ingrid Bergman


   "Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we
live."
-- Albert Einstein


   "Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."
-- Edgar Allan Poe


   The Swiss have an interesting army. Five hundred years without a war.
Pretty impressive. Also pretty lucky for them. Ever see that little Swiss
Army knife they have to fight with? Not much of a weapon there. Corkscrews.
Bottle openers. 'Come on, buddy, let's go. You get past me, the guy in back
of me, he's got a spoon. Back off. I've got the toe clippers right here.'
-- Jerry Seinfeld


   In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: 
It goes on.
-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)


   "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be
restrained."
-- William Blake


   "We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to
give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are
like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large
samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set
to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like."
-- Alfred Hitchcock


   "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who
could not hear the music."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche


   NSFW:
"One man's religion is another man's belly laugh."
-- Robert A. Heinlein


   "to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any
human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
-- e e cummings, poet (1894-1962)


   NSFW:
"A man sits with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems shorter than a
minute. But tell that same man to sit on a hot stove for a minute, it is
longer than any hour. That's relativity."
-- Albert Einstein


   "Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions
of thought. The imagination can transcend them, and more in a free sphere
of ideal existences."
-- Oscar Wilde


   "You can be watching T.V. and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the
President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can
drink Coke too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a
better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All Cokes are
the same and all Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows
it, the bum knows it, and you know it. 
NATIONALISM IS A CREATED PRODUCT." 
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do,
something to love, and something to hope for. 
-- George Washington Burnap, clergyman (1802 - 1859), https://whosaidthatreally.tumblr.com/post/69251107821/the-quote-the-grand-essentials-to-happiness-in


   NSFW:
"One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have
believed it - they also believed the world was flat."
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he
hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however
measured or far away"
-- Henry David Thoreau


   "He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled
with falsehoods and errors."
-- Thomas Jefferson


   NSFW:
"In Germany, first they came for the communists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade
unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade
unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me - and by that time
there was nobody left to speak up."
-- Martin Niemoller, pastor, initial supporter of Hitler, concentration camp survivor (1892 - 6 Mar 1984)


   "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices."
-- William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)


   "When the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box."
-- Italian proverb


   A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by
its publication as decisively severed from its author as in
parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means"
thereafter, perforce, - both grammatically and actually, - whatever
meaning this or that reader gets out of it.
-- James Cabell, __A Note on Cabellian Harmonics__ by James Branch Cabell, in Warren McNeill; Cabellian Harmonics; 1928.


   NSFW:
"The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world
its own shame."
-- Oscar Wilde


   NSFW:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false,
and by rulers as useful."
-- Seneca the Younger


   A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
-- Lao Tsu


   "I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very
reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
-- Gautama Buddha


   "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious
books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers
and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down
for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find
that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit
of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
-- Buddha


   NSFW:
And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They
replied,"You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our
being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood
revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?"
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "Clocks slay time ... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by
little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."
-- William Faulkner


   "I regard it as the chief duty of the state to protect the individual and
give him the opportunity to develop into a creative personality; that is to
say; the state should be our servant and not we its slaves."
-- Albert Einstein


   NSFW:
"If Jesus had been killed 20 years ago, Catholic school children would be
wearing little Electric Chairs around their necks instead of crosses"
-- Lenny Bruce


   NSFW:
"Ask youself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting
for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and
on this earth."
-- Ayn Rand


   "Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist,
not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is
not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the
coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this
picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own
soul."
-- Oscar Wilde


   Man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself,
yet, in other respects he is free; because, once thrown into the world, he
is responsible for everything he does.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre


   Fatigue is the best pillow. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (17 Jan 1706-1790)


   The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have
to catch it yourself.
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (17 Jan 1706-1790)


   "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so
long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for
us."
-- Helen Keller and __Don Quixote de la Mancha__ by Miguel de Cervantes, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/12/03/open-door/


   Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression
and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me
anymore. 
-- William Cowper, poet (26 Nov 1731-1800)


   "War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
-- Bertrand Russell


   Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is
not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead. 
-- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961)


   "War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could
sentimentalize its cruel reality."
-- John Sidney McCain III, American politician (1936 - 2018), May 6, 1999, speech to the American Red Cross


   "A clock just moves without thought or meaning - worthless without
interpretation."
-- Richard Paul Evans


   "The pure and simple truth is rarely pure, and never simple" 
-- Oscar Wilde


   "I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I
am still choosing." 
-- Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, playwright, novelist (21 June 1905 - 15 April 1980)


   "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" 
-- Oscar Wilde


   "We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. 
[...]
To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these
recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless; of cities filled
with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' 
Answer: That you are here - that life exists." 
-- Tom Schulman, from The Dead Poets Society


   "To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three
parts dead."
-- Bertrand Russell


   "To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a
weakness still dominating the human mind."
-- Charlotte P. Gillman


   NSFW:
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense
and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and
his children smart."
-- H. L. Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   NSFW:
"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a religion, and
he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
-- Timothy Jones


   Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. 
-- Groucho Marx


   "Military justice is to justice what military music is to music."
-- Groucho Marx


   Nietzsche Aphorisms:
Out of life's school of war- What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed. 
Forbidden generosity.
There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to
give some of it away to imaginary beings. 
Death-The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a
precious and fragrant drop of levity- and now you strange apothecary souls
have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of
life repulsive.
Luxury-The love of luxury is rooted in the depths of a man's heart: it
shows that the superfluous and immoderate is the sea wherein his soul
prefers to float.
Making use of ebb and flow-For the purpose of knowledge we must know how to
make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing, and also of
the current which after a time draws us away from it.
-- Nietzsche


   "It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right."
-- Moliere


   "Even a blind man knows when the sun is shining."
-- Grateful Dead


   "Facts, or what a man believes to be facts, are delightful... Get your
facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   I guess I've been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took
time enough to figure out where the goal line was - what it meant to
win - or even how you won.
-- Cash McCall


   Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it
stays. Clutch it, and it darts away. 
-- Dorothy Parker, author (22 Aug 1893-1967)


   My love runs by like a day in June,
And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
In the pathway or the morrows.
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
My own dear love, he is all my heart --
And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
-- Dorothy Parker, part 3


   Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be
liable to a fine of one pound.  Any animal leading a blind person shall
be deemed to be a cat.
-- Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London


   NSFW:
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?
-- Kelvin Throop III


   If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations
of the victors.  History is written by the survivors.
-- Max Lerner


   A hungry man is not a free man. 
-- Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)


   A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
-- Adlai Stevenson


   In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you
take. 
-- Adlai Stevenson, statesman (5 Feb 1900-1965)


   Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   Nothing is as simple as it seems at first
Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
-- Anonymous


   There's something the technicians need to learn from the artists.
If it isn't aesthetically pleasing, it's probably wrong.
-- Anonymous


   Save energy: be apathetic.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
poverty, n.:
An unfortunate state that persists as long
as anyone lacks anything he would like to have.
-- Anonymous


   System Administration is a dirty job, but someone said I have to do
it. 
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Ignorance is never out of style.  It was in fashion yesterday, it is the
rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow.
-- Franklin K. Dane


   I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom
I knew as well.  Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the
narrowness of my experience.
-- Henry David Thoreau, _Walden_


   The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and
not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could
have materialized - and never knowing.
-- David Viscott


   It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
-- Leonardo da Vinci


   It's easy to forgive... harder to forget.
-- Mental As Anything, "If you leave me, can I come too?"


   Good, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.
-- Robert Silverberg, _Dying Inside_


   Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places.
-- Henry David Thoreau, _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_


   If anyone disagrees with anything I say, 
I am quite prepared to not only retract it,
but also to deny under oath I ever said it.
-- Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer, American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician (b. 1928)


   Perhaps that was the whole trouble; what he felt for her was not so
much love as simply satisfaction at the idea of being in love.  Or
perhaps not.
-- Robert Silverberg, _Dying Inside_


   I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block
of wax...  and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the
image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we
forget or do not know.
-- Plato, Dialogs, Theateus 191 [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to image activation and termination.]


   The default Magic Word, "Abracadabra", actually is a corruption of the
Hebrew phrase "ha-Bracha dab'ra" which means "pronounce the blessing".
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The main problem I have with cats is, they're not dogs.
-- Kevin Cowherd


   Power corrupts.  And atomic power corrupts atomically.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him
keep her.
-- Sacha Guitry (1885 - 1957), Russian/French Playwright


   Bigamy is having one spouse too many.  Monogamy is the same.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Each of us bears his own Hell.
-- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)


   NSFW:
Women can keep a secret just as well as men, but it takes more of them
to do it.
-- Anonymous


   They don't know how the world is shaped.  And so they give it a shape, and
try to make everything fit it.  They separate the right from the left, the
man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They
only want to count to two.
-- Emma Bull, "Bone Dance"


   Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Poverty must have its satisfactions, else there would not be so many poor
people.
-- Don Herold, humorist and cartoonist


   When I am asked, "What, in your view, is the worst human rights
problem in the world today?" I reply: "Absolute poverty." This is not
the answer most journalists expect. It is neither sexy nor legalistic.
But it is true. 
-- Mary Robinson, 7th President of Ireland (b. 21 May 1944)


   A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother
drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist (1856 - 1950)


   I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the
cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a
lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no
gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does
not want to eat. 
-- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, socialist, writer, Nobel laureate (26 Jul 1856-1950)


   Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers.  There is, indeed, no wild beast
more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.
If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if
brusque, your character.
-- Jonathan Swift


   Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is
when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation.
-- Bertolt Brecht (also attributed to Harold Coffin)


   Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the
times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners
where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn
mirrors into windows. 
-- Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (14 Sep 1917-1986)


   Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. 
-- Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (14 Sep 1917-1986)


   NSFW:
It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its
proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a
better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat
your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of
attention, the harder the task.
-- Sydney J. Harris


   Marriage is the sole cause of divorce.
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
I'd rather have two girls at 21 each than one girl at 42.
-- W.C. Fields


   I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos.
-- Albert Einstein, on the randomness of quantum mechanics
Stop telling God what to do with his dice.
-- Niels Bohr's response to Einstein (also attributed to Enrico Fermi)


   One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast
to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists,
a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also
just stupid.
-- J.D. Watson, "The Double Helix"


   Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken
him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him.  Such an excess of
stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)


   Power corrupts.  Absolute power is kind of neat.
-- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987


   NSFW:
It takes a smart husband to have the last word and not use it.
-- Anonymous


   The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me.
-- Steven Wright


   Stupidity got us into this mess - why can't it get us out?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   All hope abandon, ye who enter here!
-- Dante Alighieri


   "Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call
it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression;
also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own
inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical
way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have ever seen
before. Your experience with things that you have seen before is
incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply
different. An atom does not behave like a weight hanging on a spring
and oscillating. Nor does it behave like a miniature representation of
the solar system with little planets going around in orbits. Nor does
it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding
the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have ever seen before."
-- Richard P. Feynman, _The Character of Physical Law_


   "The self goes through changes.  If one doesn't change at different
stages of life, the self begins to get tired of itself, and is no
longer a creative phenomenon."
-- Stanley Kunitz, Poet Laureate of the United States


   They could but make the best of it, and went around with woebegone
faces sadly complaining that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they
must look on light as a wave; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays as
a particle. On Sundays, they simply prayed.
-- Banesh Hoffmann


   Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve.  Run
with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened.  Keep
the company of bums and you will become a bum.  Hang around with rich people
and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke.
-- Stanley Walker


   Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
-- Jules de Gaultier


   All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a
Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks,
tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks:
"Just lie down on the floor and keep calm."
-- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You"


   The world is coming to an end.  Please log off.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   What is a chair?  Well, a chair is a certain thing over there... how
certain?  The atoms are evaporating from it from time to time - not
many atoms, but a few - dirt falls on it and gets dissolved in the
paint; so to define a chair precisely, to say exactly which atoms are
chair, and which atoms are air, or which atoms are dirt, or which
atoms are paint that belongs to the chair is impossible.  
-- Richard P. Feynman, Vol 1, Lecture 12


   Do I contradict myself?  Very well then, I contradict myself.  I am
large.  I contain multitudes.
-- Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)


   I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have
gotten the hostages released.  I thank God they were satisfied with the
missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme.
-- Oliver North


   When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years
ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind
with changing conditions.  When a man you don't like does it, he is a
liar who has broken his promises.
-- Franklin Adams


   QOTD:
The only easy way to tell a hamster from a gerbil is that the
gerbil has more dark meat.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   If you analyse anything, you destroy it.
-- Arthur Miller


   "Cheshire-Puss," she began, "would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't care much where..." said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
-- Alice in Wonderland


   No woman ever falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of
him than he deserves.
-- Edgar Watson Howe


   Ever since I was a young boy,
I've hacked the ARPA net,
From Berkeley down to Rutgers,		
Any access I could get,			
But ain't seen nothing like him,	
On any campus yet,			
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,		
Sure sends a mean packet.		
He's a UNIX wizard,
There has to be a twist.
The UNIX wizard's got			
Unlimited space on disk.		
How do you think he does it?		
I don't know.				
What makes him so good?			
He's on my favorite terminal,					
He cats C right into foo,
His disciples lead him in,
And he just breaks the root,
Always has full SYS-PRIV's,
Never uses lint,
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,			
Sure sends a mean packet.
Ain't got no distractions,
Can't hear no whistles or bells,
Can't see no message flashing,
Types by sense of smell,
Those crazy little programs,
The proper bit flags set,
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,
Sure sends a mean packet.
-- UNIX Wizard (with apologies to The Who's Pinball Wizard)


   Correction does much, but encouragement does more.
-- Goethe


   The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,
in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system:
"But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay:
for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."
-- Matthew 5:37


   "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
-- Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 - 11 May 2001), in __The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy__ by Vroomfondel


   In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a Communist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Jew.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.  Then they came for the
Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.  Then they came
for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-- Pastor Martin Niemoller


   Write yourself a threatening letter and pen a defiant reply.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence.  He
can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless
existence recurring eternally.  The second characteristic of such a man is
that he has the strength to recognise - and to live with the recognition -
that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones.
He creates himself by fashioning his own values; he has the pride to live
by the values he wills.
-- Nietzsche


   You only know what your mind can handle.
-- Anonymous


   I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens
who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known
something of what has been passing in their time.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Norvell, 1807-06-11


   Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
every six months. 
-- Oscar Wilde


   There are only two things in this world that I am sure of, death and
taxes, and we just might do something about death one of these days.
-- Anonymous


   Nothing is ever a complete failure;
it can always be used successfully as a bad example...
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
-- Lord Acton


   What doesn't kill us, hurts like hell...
-- Your Daily Fortune


   modesty, n.:
Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their
misfortunes.
-- Chilo, Chilo Chilonis, Chilon of Sparta, often quoted by Diogenes


   If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from
many it's research.
-- Wilson Mizner


   "In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with 
the current."
-- Thomas Jefferson


   Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while
you're being miserable.
-- C.B. Luce


   An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talkin' about him, ain't listening.
-- Marlon Brando


   In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe."
"Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play".
At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do you close your eyes?"
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their
inability to set a bad example.
-- La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims"


   NSFW:
...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers.  No matter how assured
we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful
inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions.  This is true in religion as
it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive.
As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be
advised to leave them to heaven.  They will not, unfortunately, do us the
same courtesy.  They attack us and each other, and whatever their 
protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear
that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword.  My own belief in
God, then, is just that - a matter of belief, not knowledge.  My respect
for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the
most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth.  But even well-educated Christians
are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure
of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record.
Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every
recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it.  Some Christians, alas,
resort to formal lying to obscure such reality.
-- Steve Allen, comedian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman


   "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought
which they avoid." 
-- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard


   Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   All phone calls are obscene.
-- Karen Elizabeth Gordon


   "Oh, you hate your job?  Why didn't you say so?  There's a support
group for that.  It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."
-- Drew Carey


   Not suprisingly, we also have a couple of money-saving ideas that we submit
to the Pentagon free of charge:
(a) Don't kill anybody.
(b) Don't build things that do.
(c) And don't pay other people to kill anybody.
We expect annual savings to be in the billions.
-- Sojourners


   Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but
television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and
world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers
whiter teeth *and* fresher breath.
-- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"


   For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
-- R. Clopton


   No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck.
-- Anonymous


   The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But, oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away!
-- Dorothy Parker, _The Fisherwoman_


   Hi Jimbo.  Dennis.  Really appreciate the help on the income tax.  You wanna
help on the audit now?
-- "The Rockford Files"


   The perfect friend sees the best in you - sees it constantly - not just
when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you
forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more
like his vision of you - which is the person you have always wanted to be.
-- Nancy Friday


   "Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot;
others transform a yellow spot into the sun." 
-- Pablo Picasso


   "Adventure lies not in discovering new landscapes, but in seeing with
new eyes." 
-- Marcel Proust


   Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
-- Francis Bacon


   When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone
to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910), "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


   NSFW:
Ever wonder if taxation without representation might have been cheaper?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Take your dying with some seriousness, however.  Laughing on the way to
your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,
and they'll call you crazy.
-- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"


   The man who runs may fight again.
-- Menander


   Dying is a very dull, dreary affair.  My advice to you is to have
nothing whatever to do with it.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, his last words


   Statistics are no substitute for judgement.
-- Henry Clay


   Multics is security spelled sideways.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   ... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an
inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth.  Most notably I have
ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old.  Well, I
haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected
it.  There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between 
prejudice and postjudice.  Prejudice is making a judgment before you have
looked at the facts.  Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards.  Prejudice
is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious
mistakes.  Postjudice is not terrible.  You can't be perfect of course; you
may make mistakes also.  But it is permissible to make a judgment after you
have examined the evidence.  In some circles it is even encouraged.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism", astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to
criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid, too.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed
with laughter.  Some day I intend reading it.
-- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"


   Now I lay me back to sleep.
The speaker's dull; the subject's deep.
If he should stop before I wake,
Give me a nudge for goodness' sake.
-- Anonymous


   Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! 
Cries she With silent lips.  
Give me your tired, your poor, 
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
-- Emma Lazarus, poet and playwright (22 Jul 1849-1887) in "The New Colossus" - [from a poem written to raise funds for building the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty]


   I'm so miserable without you, it's almost like you're here.
-- Anonymous


   Pardo's First Postulate:
Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
Arnold's Addendum:
Everything else causes cancer in rats.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It's amazing how much better you feel once you've given up hope.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
-- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"


   I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt
on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. 
-- Maya Angelou, poet (4 Apr 1928-2014)


   NSFW:
Don't vote - it only encourages them!
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet,
challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that
keeps the blood at heat.  Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents
itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb
of innocence.  To yield to its blandishments is so easy.  The wrong, it seems,
is venial...  Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of
adventurous youth.
-- Benjamin Cardozo


   ELWOOD: It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half
a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
JAKE: Hit it!
-- The Blues Brothers


   "Maybe, it's not too late, to learn how to love, and forget how to hate."
-- Ozzy Osbourne, "Crazy Train"


   "Me fail English?  But that am un-possible!"
-- Ralph Wiggum, "The Simpsons"


   One evening he spoke.  Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her,
he allowed his soul to be heard.  "My darling, anything you wish, anything
I am, anything I can ever be...  That's what I want to offer you - not the
things I'll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get
them.  That thing - a man can't renounce it - but I want to renounce it - so
that it will be yours - so that it will be in your service - only for you."
The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie
Kelly?"
He got up.  He said nothing and walked out of the house.  He never
saw that girl again.  Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a
lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed.
-- Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead"


   Time as he grows old teaches all things.
-- Aeschylus


   Chihuahuas drive me crazy.  I can't stand anything that shivers when it's warm.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or
help speed the change by breaking them?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   double-blind experiment, n:
An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is
fooling both the subject and the lab assistant.  Often accompanied
by a strong belief in the tooth fairy.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from
the vexation of thinking.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831


   * Neophyte's serendipity.
* Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of
hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow.
* A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no
congeries of small, green bryophytic plant.
* The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the
optimal cachinnation.
* Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential
escallation of a lucrative nature.
* Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of
fracturing osseous structure, but appellations will eternally
remain innocuous.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The descent to Hades is the same from every place.
-- Anaxagoras


   NSFW:
Shah, shah!  Ayatollah you so!
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "Johnny's life passed him by, like a warm summer day,
If you listen to the wind, you can still hear him play."
-- Bad Company, "Shooting Star"


   Conjecture: All odd numbers are prime.
Mathematician's Proof:
3 is prime.  5 is prime.  7 is prime.  By induction, all
odd numbers are prime.
Physicist's Proof:
3 is prime.  5 is prime.  7 is prime.  9 is experimental
error.  11 is prime.  13 is prime ...
Engineer's Proof:
3 is prime.  5 is prime.  7 is prime.  9 is prime.
11 is prime.  13 is prime ...
Computer Scientists's Proof:
3 is prime.  3 is prime.  3 is prime.  3 is prime...
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore.
-- Russian Proverb


   Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
-- Samuel Beckett


   Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation.
-- Thomas Keating


   If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the
shoulders of giants.
- Isaac Newton
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on
my shoulders.
- Hal Abelson
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with
the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
- Gerald Holton
Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
- Gauss
Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists
stand on each other's toes.
- Richard Hamming


   It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on
the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. 
-- I Ching


   I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of
its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland.  He
loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to
look down.  At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per
second per second takes over.
II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon
characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone
pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely.
Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the
stooge's surcease.
III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation
conforming to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the
speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless
cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through
the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole.  The
threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
-- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980


   If we can't fix it, it ain't broke (Maintainer's Motto) 
-- Your Daily Fortune


   I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
A bit or byte to read or write,
I/O, I/O, I/O...
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It is easier to forgive an enemy than it is to forgive a friend. 
-- Blake, 1804


   The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


   There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced
by circumstances to meet.
-- Admiral William Halsey


   It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
-- Robert Benchley


   Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister
-- Su Tung-p'o, aka Su Shih, aka Su Shi, 1036 CE - 1101 CE


   FROM THE DESK OF
Dorothy Gale
Auntie Em:
Hate you.
Hate Kansas.
Taking the dog.
Dorothy
-- Anonymous


   I object to intellect without discipline;  I object to power without
constructive purpose.
-- Spock, Star Trek, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5


   Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
-- Ingrid Bergman


   Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers
HAS been approved. 
-- The Blues Brothers


   A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
-- Groucho Marx


   There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"


   Before you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to
know the answers.
-- Gene Wolfe, "The Claw of the Conciliator"


   "Always walk a mile in a person's shoes before you criticize them;
that way, when you DO criticize them, you will be a mile away, and
you'll have their shoes."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   I let my heart fall into careless hands;
Careless hands don't care when dreams slip through.
-- Bob Hilliard and Carl Sigman, _Careless Hands_


   NSFW:
Pray, v.:  
To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a
single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914),  The Devil's Dictionary


   A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
-- Winston Churchill


   Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   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.


   Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember
and be sad.
-- Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894)


   NSFW:
Give a woman an inch and she'll park a car in it.
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead 
girl or a live boy."
-- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards


   Flugg's Law:
When you need to knock on wood is when you realize
that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
-- Anonymous


   Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around us in awareness.
-- James Thurber


   Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced - even a proverb is
no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.  
-- John Keats


   My God, I'm depressed!  Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times
as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending
mail about softball games.  And I've got this pain right through my ALU.
I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens.  I think it would
be better for us both if you were to just log out again.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "What I've done, of course, is total garbage."
-- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a


   The good (I am convinced, for one)
Is but the bad one leaves undone.
Once your reputation's done
You can live a life of fun.
-- Wilhelm Busch


   (No one can put you down without your full cooperation by Anonymous.)
Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt.


   When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years
ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind
with changing conditions.  When a man you don't like does it, he is a
liar who has broken his promises.
-- Franklin Adams


   "I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.  "Of course you don't - till I tell you.  I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
-- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"


   Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a
mountain in a fog.  But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside
than in bed.  What kind of man would live where there is no daring?
And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure?
Is there a better way to die?
-- Charles Lindbergh


   Would you care to view the ruins of my good intentions?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Somewhat alarmed at the continued growth of the number of employees
on the Department of Agriculture payroll in 1962, Michigan Republican Robert
Griffin proposed an amendment to the farm bill so that "the total number of
employees in the Department of Agriculture at no time exceeds the number of
farmers in America."
-- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits"


   NSFW:
...we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent
observations and inferences by the thousands.  The earth is billions of
years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary
descent.  Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but
do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither
flat nor at the center of the universe?  Science *has* taught us some
things with confidence!  Evolution on an ancient earth is as well
established as our planet's shape and position.  Our continuing struggle
to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not
cast our documentation of its occurrence - the "fact of evolution" -
into doubt.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol XII No. 2


   Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
-- Anonymous


   The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard
loom weaves flowers and leaves.
-- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer


   Those who view mathematical science, not merely as a vast body of
abstract and immutable truths, whose intrinsic beauty, symmetry and
logical completeness, when regarded in their connexion together as a
whole, entitle them to a prominent place in the interest of all
profound and logical minds, but as possessing a yet deeper interest
for the human race, when it is remembered that this science
constitutes the language through which alone we can adequately express
the great facts of the natural world, and those unceasing changes of
mutual relationship which, visibly or invisibly, consciously or
unconsciously to our immediate physical perceptions, are interminably
going on in the agencies of the creation we live amidst: those who
thus think on mathematical truth as the instrument through which the
weak mind of man can most effectually read his Creator's works, will
regard with especial interest all that can tend to facilitate the
translation of its principles into explicit practical forms.
-- Ada Augusta, Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, https://medium.com/@marta.p/engines-poetry-and-ada-lovelaces-legacy-lies-in-the-power-of-imagination-5f3cded1a646


   Flee at once, all is discovered.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2
What to do...
if you get a phone call from Mars:
Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly.  Limit
your vocabulary to simple words.  Try to determine if you are
speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen.
if he, she or it doesn't speak English?
Hang up.  There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone.
If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she
or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before
calling.
if you get a phone call from Jupiter?
Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter,
he, she or it is not "life as we know it".  Try to terminate the
conversation as soon as possible.  It will not profit you, and the
charges may have been reversed.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
-- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance"


   Absence diminishes commonplace passions and increases great ones, as
the wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire. 
-- Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)


   Absence is to love what wind is to fire.  It extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.
-- Anonymous


   "Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
you knowing nothing?"
-- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions


   Let your conscience be your guide.
-- Pope


   But it does move!
-- Galileo Galilei


   If the very old will remember, the very young will listen.
-- Chief Dan George


   When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple
of asterisked sentences:
It weighs less than 8 pounds.*
And costs less than $1,300.**
In tiny type were these "fuller explanations":
* Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out?  Well, all
this means is that the IIc alone weighs 7.5 pounds. The power
pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks
will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you
might not be able to figure this out for yourself.
** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if
you really want to.  Or less.
-- Forbes


   When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve
people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
-- Norm Crosby


   "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward"
-- William E. Davidsen


   What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Life is like a simile.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
-- William Blake


   It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
-- Popularized by Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/19/forgive/


   An amateur practises until he can do a thing right, a professional until he can't do it wrong.
-- Popularized by Prof. Percy C. Buck, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/29/get-it-right/


   "When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest."
-- Bullwinkle Moose


   We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect
their good judgement.
-- Anonymous


   The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible
worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
-- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion"


   The characteristic property of hallucinogens, to suspend the boundaries between
the experiencing self and the outer world in an ecstatic, emotional experience,
makes it posible with their help, and after suitable internal and external
perparation...to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to speak...
I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid 
to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive
reality.  Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character
of LSD as a sacred drug.
-- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD


   Agnes' Law:
Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of.
-- Agnes/Anonymous


   ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand.  Human
intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
we can tell.  If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.  Even the standard
example of ancient nonsense - the debate about angels on pinheads -
makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
finite or an infinite number.
-- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"


   Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
-- Rich Kulawiec


   I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to
be.... The natural disposition is always to believe.  It is acquired
wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very
seldom teach it enough. 
-- Adam Smith


   Behave as if an impartial spectator is watching you. Use the idea of
an impartial spectator to step outside yourself and see yourself as
others see you. Use that vision to know yourself. Avoid the seductions
of money and fame, for they will never satisfy.
-- Adam Smith, __The Theory of Moral Sentiments__


   ... An appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to the 
tribunal of their own consciences, to that of the supposed impartial
and well-informed spectator, to that of the man within the breast, the
great judge and arbiter of their conduct. 
-- Adam Smith, __The Theory of Moral Sentiments__


   Bore, n.:
A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914),  The Devil's Dictionary


   Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing
as division.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Time gets mighty precious,
When there's less of it to waste.
-- Bonnie Raitt, "Nick of Time"


   It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
-- Alfred Adler


   Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right,
and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right,
then the other was the left, but he never could remember how to begin.
-- Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne


   Woody:  What's the story, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:   The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery.
Let's just cut to the happy ending.
-- Cheers, Airport V


   NSFW:
Woody:  Hey, Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you.
Norm:   I know, and if she calls, I'm not here.
-- Cheers, Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back


   Sam:  Beer, Norm?
Norm: Have I gotten that predictable?  Good.
-- Cheers, Don't Paint Your Chickens


   A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single 
man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery


   Fifth Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
there is nothing important to do.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   You may my glories and my state dispose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
-- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"


   management, n.:
The art of getting other people to do all the work.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Reality is for people who lack imagination.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
There goes the good time that was had by all.
-- Bette Davis, remarking on a passing starlet


   Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good solutions
seldom black or white.  Beware of the solution that requires one side to be
totally the loser and the other side to be totally the winner.  The reason
there are two sides to begin with usually is because neither side has all
the facts.  Therefore, when the wise mediator effects a compromise, he is
not acting from political motivation.  Rather, he is acting from a deep
sense of respect for the whole truth.
-- Stephen R. Schwambach


   Sam:  What are you up to Norm?
Norm: My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall.
-- Cheers, Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh


   Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful
hearing when age has further impaired his mind.
-- Finley Peter Dunne


   I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is fourteen days.
-- Totie Fields


   There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon,
however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable.
Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be 
discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator
on his own account.  The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is
even highly probable.
-- H. L. Mencken, 1930, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.
-- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation, manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York Times, June 10, 1955.


   The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth.
-- Anonymous


   There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy.  There is
nothing good in war.  Except its ending.
-- Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5


   Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start
coming in late and lying about it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on
our heads tomorrow.  But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!
-- Chief Vitalstatistix in __Adventures of Asterix__


   Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.
-- Irene Peter


   "He must be a 'practical' man who can see no poetry in mathematics."
-- W.F. White


   I'm going to Vietnam at the request of the White House.  President Johnson
says a war isn't really a war without my jokes.
-- Bob Hope


   Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish
and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if
quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and
and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and
Chips, as well as after Chips?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   clone, n:
1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone of their
product."  2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their product
is a clone of our product."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   We are what we pretend to be.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


   Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   I've always made it a solemn practice to never drink anything stronger
than tequila before breakfast.
-- R. Nesson


   He asked me if I knew what time it was - I said yes, but not right now.
-- Steven Wright


   philosophy:
Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A friend in need is a pest indeed.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist (1856 - 1950)


   I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.  But this wasn't it.
-- Groucho Marx


   No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
-- Aesop


   Stuckness shouldn't be avoided.  It's the psychic predecessor of all
real understanding.  An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an
understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors.
-- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"


   The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
-- Lily Tomlin


   NSFW:
Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat.  You pull his tail in New
York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles.  Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there.  The only difference is that there is no cat."
-- Anonymous


   If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
So many women; so little nerve.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest
benefactor the world has yet known.
-- Sir Richard Francis Burton


   Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained
only by the disinclination of others to listen.  Reserve is an artificial
quality that is developed in most of us as the result of innumerable rebuffs.
-- W.S. Maugham


   Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest,
Do not cease your single-handed struggle.
Go on, do not rest.
-- An old Gujarati hymn


   Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
-- William Congreve, dramatist (1670-1729)


   In science, it often happens that scientists say, 'You know, that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.  They really
do it.  It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are
human and change is sometimes painful.  But it happens every day.  I cannot
recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   I used to live in a house by the freeway.  When I went anywhere, I had
to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway.
I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights.  Now it looks
like I'm the only one moving.
I was pulled over for speeding today.  The officer said, "Don't you know
the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?"  And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
to be out that long."
I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out.  Now
my car goes 500 miles an hour.
-- Steven Wright


   One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as one
man would have produced alone.  These two plus two more will produce half
again as many ideas.  These four plus four more begin to represent a
creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as many ...
-- Anthony Chevins


   What you see is from outside yourself, and may come, or not, but is beyond
your control.  But your fear is yours, and yours alone, like your voice, or
your fingers, or your memory, and therefore yours to control.  If you feel
powerless over your fear, you have not yet admitted that it is yours, to do
with as you will.
-- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "Stormqueen"


   Everything is possible.  Pass the word.
-- Rita Mae Brown, "Six of One"


   No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks,
however false.
-- Alexander Hamilton


   "Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time."
-- a coffee cup


   I went on to test the program in every way I could devise.  I strained
it to expose its weaknesses.  I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass
stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold.
I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be
absent - not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had
developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case.
Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's
temperature to be less than absolute zero.  I had found an error.  I
chased down the error and fixed it.  Now I had improved the program to
the point where it would not run at all.
-- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars"


   "The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the
sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment."
-- Richard P. Feynman


   Conversation, n.:
A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
is called the listener.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Love is an obsessive delusion that is cured by marriage.
-- Dr. Karl Bowman


   Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.
-- Baba Ram Dass


   Why does a ship carry cargo and a truck carry shipments?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   What does education often do?  It makes a straight cut ditch of a
free meandering brook.
-- Henry David Thoreau


   The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
-- Omar Khayyam


   Mediocrity finds safety in standardization.
-- Frederick Crane


   NSFW:
Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the
whole girl.
-- Stephen Leacock


   "Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
-- Robert Heinlein


   A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet--
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
-- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"


   When I woke up this morning, my girlfriend asked if I had slept well.
I said, "No, I made a few mistakes."
-- Steven Wright


   +#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI)
+       /*
+        * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus
+        * this makes the year come out right.
+        */
+       year -= 42;
+#endif
(From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner)
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "There is only one requirement for any of us and that is to be
courageous, because courage, as you might know, defines all other
human behaviour.  And I believe, because I've done a bit of this
myself, that pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real
thing."
-- David Letterman, first show after the WTC attack, aired on 2001-09-17


   Having no talent is no longer enough.
-- Gore Vidal


   There are some things worth dying for.
-- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", Star Trek, stardate 3201.7


   It is all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it
now and then.
-- Richard Armour


   Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really
made the principle of it instead of faith. 
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (4 Aug 1792-1822)


   We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in
spite of what we are.
-- Victor Hugo


   There are three ways to get something done:
(1) Do it yourself.
(2) Hire someone to do it for you.
(3) Forbid your kids to do it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Your children are not your children. 
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 
They come through you but not from you, 
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. 
You give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. 
You may house their bodies but not their souls, 
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 
-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   A crow perched himself on a telephone wire.  He was going to make a
long-distance caw.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
-- Elbert Hubbard


   NSFW:
You will find me drinking gin
In the lowest kind of inn,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.
-- G.K. Chesterton


   NSFW:
For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex.
-- Gore Vidal


   Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
Aleph-null bottles of beer,
You take one down, and pass it around,
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way
before it is understood.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Madness has no purpose.  Or reason.  But it may have a goal.
-- Spock, Star Trek, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7


   A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
-- Aristotle


   Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory" [or "Not so Deep as a Well"?]


   NSFW:
Wouldn't this be a great world if being insecure and desperate were a turn-on?
-- "Broadcast News"


   "No program is perfect,"
They said with a shrug.
"The customer's happy--
What's one little bug?"
But he was determined,                  Then change two, then three more,
The others went home.                   As year followed year.
He dug out the flow chart               And strangers would comment,
Deserted, alone.                        "Is that guy still here?"
Night passed into morning.              He died at the console
The room was cluttered                  Of hunger and thirst
With core dumps, source listings.       Next day he was buried
"I'm close," he muttered.               Face down, nine edge first.
Chain smoking, cold coffee,             And his wife through her tears
Logic, deduction.                       Accepted his fate.
"I've got it!" he cried,                Said "He's not really gone,
"Just change one instruction."          He's just working late."
-- The Perfect Programmer


   I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when
it has been used to commit a murder.
-- M. Gallaher


   A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS:
7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY.
You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly,
to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians.
8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD.
It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means.
9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE
OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR.
The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a
sacred duty to protect him from exposure.
10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE.
This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   There's too much beauty upon this earth for lonely men to bear.
-- Richard Le Gallienne


   While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their
correctness never does.
-- Anonymous


   I have found little that is good about human beings.  In my experience
most of them are trash.
-- Sigmund Freud


   What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned
me. Now they are content with burning my books. 
-- Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (6 May 1856-1939)


   For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
-- Alexander Pope


   The human race never solves any of its problems.  It merely outlives them.
-- David Gerrold


   It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
-- Leonardo da Vinci


   Wish and hope succeed in discerning signs of paranormality where reason and
careful scientific procedure fail.
-- James E. Alcock, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12


   They're giving bank robbing a bad name.
-- John Dillinger, on Bonnie and Clyde


   Q:      How many IBM CPU's does it take to do a logical right shift?
A:      33.  1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to eat.
-- John McNulty


   Programmers do it bit by bit.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   poisoned coffee, n.:
Grounds for divorce.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Kaufman's Law:
A policy is a restrictive document to prevent a recurrence
of a single incident, in which that incident is never mentioned.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Sex is like air.  It's only a big deal if you can't get any.
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even
drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man.  These things offer
pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which
demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and
sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams - and still calls for more.
They are fools that think otherwise.  No great effort was ever bought.
No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was
ever raised into being for payment of any kind.  No parthenon, no Thermopylae
was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground
beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone.  The payment for doing these
things was itself the doing of them.
To wield onself - to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand - and
so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin - THAT is the
greatest pleasure known to man!  To one who has felt the chisel in his hand
and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt
sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body
of his mortal enemy - to those both come alike the taste of that rare food
spread only for demons or for gods."
-- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"


   The secret of success is sincerity.  Once you can fake that, you've got
it made.
-- Jean Giraudoux


   Q: What's the difference between praying at the church and praying at
the casino?
A: In the casino, you reallly mean it.
-- Jim Northrup


   Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.
It makes sense, when you don't think about it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Charlie was a chemist,
But Charlie is no more.
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   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.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "Man is incomplete until he gets married.  And after marriage, he is
finished..." 
-- Anonymous


   "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while 
the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
-- William Stekel, physician and psychologist (1868-1940)


   To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun.  To accuse neither
oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
-- Epictetus


   Let us treat men and women well;
Treat them as if they were real;
Perhaps they are.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


   "This isn't true in practice -- what we've missed out is Stradivarius's
constant."  And then the aside: "For those of you who don't know, that's
been called by others the fiddle factor..."
-- From a 1B Electrical Engineering lecture.


   life, n.:
That brief interlude between nothingness and eternity.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Rascal, am I?  Take THAT!
-- Errol Flynn


   NSFW:
Q:      "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic
existentialist?"
A:      "Is there a dog?"
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed.  Oh, I 
know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must 
be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people 
I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles."
-- Michael Ende, writing for Bastian B. Bux in __The Neverending Story__


   Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
-- Publilius Syrus


   My death?  But you see, I will not die; it is the world that will end. 
-- On __Donahue__ where Ayn Rand quotes an unknown ancient Greek philosopher (with some liberties, as per: http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/aug/17/object-lesson/transcript/)


   This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel.
(If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?)
-- Found on a door in the MSU music building


   NSFW:
Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to
school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a
person a car. 
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it.
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
God is dead and I don't feel so good myself.
-- Peter M. Candler, Jr., Associate Professor of Theology


   No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
-- Aristotle


   Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural
function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the
other.  There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the
brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise.
Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only. ... It is quite
conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected.  But it
is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working
assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it.
Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble.  One cannot
logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology.
-- D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory", 1949


   NSFW:
The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain
disdain; he is anything but her ideal.  In consequence, she cannot help
feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is
their father.
-- H.L. Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   NSFW:
Women sometimes forgive a man who forces the opportunity, but never a man
who misses one.
-- Charles De Talleyrand-Perigord


   And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the
hour of separation.
-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   Some husbands are living proof that a woman can take a joke.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   To be wise, the only thing you really need to know is when to say
"I don't know."
-- Anonymous


   I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives.  I don't see why
I should have to believe in it in this one.
-- Strange de Jim


   Too often, man becomes clever instead of wise.
-- Rod Serling, __Twilight Zone__ "The Brain Center at Whipple's"


   Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs
of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist (1856 - 1950)


   The customs of your tribe are not laws of nature.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist (1856 - 1950)


   Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws
of nature!
-- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist (1856 - 1950)


   Jane and I got mixed up with a television show - or as we call it back
east here: TV - a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible
Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium - we call it a medium
because nothing's well done. It was discovered, I suppose you've heard,
by a man named Fulton Berle, and it has already revolutionized social
grace by cutting down parlour conversation to two sentences: "What's on
television?" and "Good night".
-- Goodman Ace, letter to Groucho Marx, in The Groucho Letters, 1967


   Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in town.
And sometimes I take a great notion,
To jump in the river and drown.
-- __Goodnight Irene__ by The Weavers (Ledbetter cover)


   A man who keeps stealing mopeds is an obvious cycle-path.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about
can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely.
-- Lao Tsu


   If life is a stage, I want some better lighting.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for
even the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
-- C.C. Colton


   Bedfellows make strange politicians.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled.  Ever
since, he's been talking about the good old dais.  His students planted a small
orchard in his honor; the trees all have square roots.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-- Mahatma Gandhi


   We all know dreams can seem real but who knows if reality can be a dream?
-- Rod Serling, _Twilight Zone_ ("Shadow Play")


   There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law.
No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth.
-- Jean Giraudoux, "Tiger at the Gates"


   An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation,
leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir
Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be,
Milord, but at least you're better informed!"
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can.
-- Albertano of Brescia


   The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things
tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good
sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to
burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion
obviously demanded that they should burn none at all. 
-- Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, dramatist, and Nobel laureate (29 Aug 1862-1949)


   It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Never go to bed mad.  Stay up and fight.
-- Phyllis Diller, "Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints"


   NSFW:
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when
a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent
songs.  I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as
those without might see and hear.  They told a tale which was then altogether
beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud, long and deep,
breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest
anguish.  Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God
for deliverance from chains.
-- Frederick Douglass


   To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
call it the target.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.
[There is no great genius without some touch of madness.]
-- Seneca


   A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
"You who hate the Jews so, why did you adopt their religion?"
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, addressing anti-semitic Christians


   "An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a
cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." 
-- H.L. Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   NSFW:
It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not hers.
-- Spock, Star Trek, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7


   "If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem."
-- C. Durance, Computer Science 234


   Life, in the state of nature, is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
-- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan


   Woody: Hey, Mr. P.  How goes the search for Mr. Clavin?
Norm:  Not as well as the search for Mr. Donut.
Found him every couple of blocks.
-- Cheers, Head Over Hill


   For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   C Code.
C Code Run.
Run, Code, RUN!
PLEASE!!!!
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The very remembrance of my former misfortune proves a new one to me.
-- Miguel de Cervantes


   Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
-- Publilius Syrus


   Now I lay me down to study,
I pray the Lord I won't go nutty.
And if I fail to learn this junk,
I pray the Lord that I won't flunk.
But if I do, don't pity me at all,
Just lay my bones in the study hall.
Tell my teacher I've done my best,
Then pile my books upon my chest.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   On a paper submitted by a fellow physicist:
"This isn't right.  This isn't even wrong."
-- Wolfgang Pauli


   Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones,
as the wind blows out candles and fans fires.
-- La Rochefoucauld


   I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's;
I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create.
-- William Blake, "Jerusalem"


   It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do,
that makes life blessed.
-- Goethe


   Happiness is not having what you want; it's wanting what you have.
-- Anonymous


   Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom.  The first is being a bore.
-- Cecil Beaton


   NSFW:
Every man thinks God is on his side.  The rich and powerful know that he is.
-- Jean Anouilh, "The Lark"


   No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.
-- Quintus Ennius


   If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better,
and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can
convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health.
-- Sir Peter Medawar, "The Art of the Soluble", Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine (1915 - 1987)


   The greatest love is a mother's, then a dog's, then a sweetheart's.
-- Polish proverb


   I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of 
others, and all positive assertion of my own.  I even forbade myself the use 
of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, 
such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc.   I adopted instead of them "I 
conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it 
appears to me at present".
When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the 
pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some 
absurdity in his proposition.  In answering I began by observing that in 
certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present
case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc.
I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I 
engaged in went on more pleasantly.  The modest way in which I proposed my 
opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction.  I had 
less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily 
prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I 
happened to be in the right.
-- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   Bershere's Formula for Failure:
There are only two kinds of people who fail: those who
listen to nobody... and those who listen to everybody.
-- Anonymous


   When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder.
-- James H. Boren


   "Consider a spherical bear, in simple harmonic motion..."
-- Professor in the UCB physics department


   Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.
-- Augustus Caesar


   Coach: What's the story, Norm?
Norm:  Thirsty guy walks into a bar.  You finish it.
-- Cheers, Endless Slumper


   Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to
time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
-- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist"


   A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Gandhi


   NSFW:
"Violence accomplishes nothing."  What a contemptible lie!  Raw, naked
violence has settled more issues throughout history than any other method
ever employed.  Perhaps the city fathers of Carthage could debate the
issue, with Hitler and Alexander as judges?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
-- Alexander Woollcott


   "It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble.  It's the
things we know that ain't so."
-- Artemus Ward, nom de plume of Charles Farrar Browne (1834 - 1867)
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know
for sure that just ain't so."
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   Choose in marriage only a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she
were a man.
-- Joseph Joubert (1754 - 1824)


   No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
-- Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE)


   The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
-- George S. Patton, US general (1885 - 1945), likely quoting an old Chinese proverb


   If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me
The pot's at the other end.
-- Bert Whitney


   What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word QUALITY cannot be
broken down into subjects and predicates.  This is not because Quality
is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate, and direct.
-- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"


   And say simply,
Very simply,
With Hope:
Good morning.
-- Maya Angelou, Clinton Inauguration, 1993


   Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later;
for another thing they die earlier.
-- H.L. Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
-- T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Man" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to system service dispatching.]


   Sic transit gloria mundi.
[So passes away the glory of this world.]
-- Thomas a Kempis


   Real programmers don't comment their code.  It was hard to write, it
should be hard to understand.
-- Anonymous


   Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?"  The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so,"
Replied the angel.  Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote, and vanished.  The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo!  Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
-- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem"


   May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
Thousand Caramels.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   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


   If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every
word you say, talk in your sleep.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science
collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke
miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into
the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to 
abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all
fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion,
misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the
ideas of their opponents."
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186


   You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings
infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can
grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it
possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.
-- Rainer Rilke


   Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around
the sun.  At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when
evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can
doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact.  That all present
life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is
as firmly established as Copernican cosmology.  Biologists differ only with
respect to theories about how the process operates.
-- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life".


   NSFW:
"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to
create him."
-- Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917 - )


   The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the
other 90% of the time.
-- Anonymous


   He who knows, does not speak.  He who speaks, does not know.
-- Lao Tsu


   Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself.
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery


   The first myth of management is that it exists.  The second myth of
management is that success equals skill.
-- Robert Heller


   I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it.
-- Jack Handey (aka, the inimitable Phil Hartman)


   What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
-- William Blake


   This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go,
explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for
use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it
and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do.
We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around
pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since
we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of
making anything out of all the hard work.
If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go
around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much
attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not.  Just keep your doors
locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark.
-- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow


   This is for all ill-treated fellows
Unborn and unbegot,
For them to read when they're in trouble
And I am not.
-- A. E. Housman


   Microbiology Lab:  Staph Only!
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-- William Pitt, 1783


   Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult
than to understand him.
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky


   NSFW:
A woman is like your shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.
-- Chamfort


   When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will.
-- Anonymous


   Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968)


   Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968), __Strength to Love__ (1963)


   Churchill's Commentary on Man:
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth,
but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
-- Winston Churchill


   No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent,
He knows changes aren't permanent -
But change is.
-- Rush, "Tom Sawyer"


   Convention is the ruler of all.
-- Pindar


   Coach: How's life treating you, Norm?
Norm:  Like it caught me in bed with his wife.
-- Cheers, Any Friend of Diane's


   Coach: How's life, Norm?
Norm:  Not for the squeamish, Coach.
-- Cheers, Friends, Romans, and Accountants


   Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning handsprings, or eating with
chopsticks.  It looks easy until you try it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Will you loan me $20.00 and only give me ten of it?
That way, you will owe me ten, and I'll owe you ten, and we'll be even!
-- Your Daily Fortune


   An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
-- Anonymous


   Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their
minds cannot change anything.
-- G.B. Shaw


   As you grow older, you will still do foolish things, but you will do them
with much more enthusiasm.
-- The Cowboy


   In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to
his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's
kill all the lawyers."  That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment
was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc.
Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News,
Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess
of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts.  Lawyers
and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure
out how the pie gets divided.  Neither profession provides any added value
to product."
According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has
10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population.  The U.S. has 200
lawyers and 700 accountants.  This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of
pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack."  Could Dick Butcher have
been an efficiency expert?
-- Motor Trend, May 1983


   Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the
window.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve.
-- Wheeler


   "If you are going through hell, keep going." 
-- Sir Winston Churchill


   Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
-- The Wizard of Oz


   You can't have everything.  Where would you put it?
-- Steven Wright


   We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the
machinations of the wicked.
-- Anonymous


   Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
-- Anonymous


   We are the unaware, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary, for the ungrateful.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of
a new system.  For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders
in those who would gain by the new ones.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513


   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.
-- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BCE.


   I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20
years ago.  When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors
would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they
all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!"
Years later, I went back to the same hotel.  I noticed the room keys had
been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors.
There was a computer in every doorknob.
-- Danny Hillis


   If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
-- Anonymous


   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.


   There is one way to find out if a man is honest - ask him.  If he says
"Yes" you know he is crooked.
-- Groucho Marx


   "Here's something to think about:  How come you never see a headline like
'Psychic Wins Lottery'?"
-- Jay Leno


   Lack of money is the root of all evil.
-- George Bernard Shaw


   The government has just completed work on a missile that turned out to be a
bit of a boondoggle; nicknamed "Civil Servant", it won't work and they can't
fire it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   You are not a fool just because you have done something foolish -
only if the folly of it escapes you.
-- Anonymous


   For good, return good.
For evil, return justice.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided
at all costs.
-- N. Alexander.


   Why is the alphabet in that order?  Is it because of that song?
-- Steven Wright


   Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real
with the ideal never goes unpunished.
-- Goethe


   "The release of emotion is what keeps us healthy.  Emotionally healthy."
"That may be, Doctor.  However, I have noted that the healthy release
of emotion is frequently unhealthy for those closest to you." 
-- McCoy and Spock, Star Trek, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3


   Anarchy may not be a better form of government, but it's better than no
government at all.
-- Anonymous


   Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is
by no means the only 'certain' standard. If you mistake what is
relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate
truth.
-- Chuang Tzu


   Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx


   A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle
unless there be two.  
-- Seneca


   Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. 
-- William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (1860-1954)


   My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot
replace it."
-- Erich Maria Remarque


   If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish with regard
to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and
even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust
yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in
a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external
things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity
neglect the other.
-- Epictetus


   /* Halley */
(Halley's comment.)
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Poetry is what gets lost in translation. 
-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)


   Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing
your temper or your self-confidence.
-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)


   Do not think by infection, catching an opinion like a cold.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or
believe to be beautiful. 
-- William Morris, Artist (1834 - 1896)


   Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the
first of that which comes; so with present time.
-- Leonardo da Vinci, (1452-1519).


   Many live in the ivory tower called reality; they never venture on the open
sea of thought.
-- Francois Gautier, journalist (1950- )


   "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity."
-- Oscar Wilde


   To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely
instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a
lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written
by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.
-- Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)


   Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it
often substitutes for both.
-- John Andrew Holmes


   Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp
because the dawn has come. 
-- Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (7 May 1861-1941)


   If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly
perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.
-- Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)


   Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why
should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
-- Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)


   It must be admitted that the fundamental disturbance of the human soul
springs first of all from men's considering phenomena as caused by human
beings to whom they attribute will, action, and motive power; then by
the fact that men, believing in myths, will always fear something
terrible, everlasting punishment as certain or probable, and are even
frightened of the insensibility of death, as if we should be conscious
of it; and finally by the fact that, as a result, men base all these
fears not on mature opinions, but on irrational fancies, so that they
are more disturbed by fear of the unknown than by facing facts. Peace of
mind lies in being delivered from all these fears.
-- Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)


   I never made a mistake in my life.  I thought I did once, but I was wrong.
-- Lucy Van Pelt (Charles Schulz), __Peanuts__


   It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one
who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The
other is mere business.
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)


   "Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed."
-- Robin, The Boy Wonder


   There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
-- Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)


   And so it was, later,
As the miller told his tale,
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale.
-- Procol Harum


   A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the
temper of the sufferer.
-- Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)


   I had a feeling once about mathematics - that I saw it all.  Depth
beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and the Abyss. I saw - as
one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show - a
quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to
minus.  I saw exactly why it happened and why tergiversation was
inevitable - but it was after dinner and I let it go.
-- Winston Churchill


   Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction. 
-- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (19 Jun 1623-1662)


   The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
-- Blaise Pascal


   Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.
-- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (19 Jun 1623-1662)


   Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and 
goodness.
-- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)


   If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in
the world.
-- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)


   I have discovered that all human evil comes from this:  man's being
unable to sit still in a room.
-- Blaise Pascal


   All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.
-- Chou En Lai


   War is merely the continuation of policy by other means. 
-- Carl von Clausewitz, general and military theorist (1 Jun 1780-1831)


   Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.
-- Gustave Flaubert, novelist (1821-1880)


   Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady
purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)


   In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to
say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?
-- Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)


   Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
-- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (III.i.55)


   NSFW:
Do you have lysdexia?
-- Your Daily Fortune


   If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   That's life.
What's life?
A magazine.
How much does it cost?
Two-fifty.
I only have a dollar.
That's life.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year
of discussion. 
-- Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)


   If the secret sorrows of everyone could be read on their forehead, how 
many who now cause envy would suddenly become the objects of pity. 
-- Italian proverb


   Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of
proportion, a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are 
events of the same size. 
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   Because I do,
Because I do not hope,
Because I do not hope to survive
Injustice from the Palace, death from the air,
Because I do, only do,
I continue...
-- T.S. Pynchon


   History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
exhausted all other alternatives.
-- Abba Eban, diplomat and politician (1915 - 2002)


   The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-- Churchill


   Lord, defend me from my friends; I can account for my enemies.
-- Charles D'Hericault


   It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly
one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to
suit facts.
-- Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (1859-1930)


   "You see but you do not observe."
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes"


   I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better
for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and
something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of
breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man
and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little
ones count for something. 
-- Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (22 May 1859-1930)


   When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth. 
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (1859-1930)


   Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Comment"


   The most important things, each person must do for himself.
-- Anonymous


   Who loves me will also love my dog.
-- John Donne


   leverage, n.:
Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks
about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Lighten up, while you still can,
Don't even try to understand,
Just find a place to make your stand,
And take it easy.
-- The Eagles, "Take It Easy"


   A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.
-- Ramsey Clark


   Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about
astrology] aside for a moment, one overriding question remains to be asked.
Why would the positions of celestial objects at the moment of birth have an
effect on our characters, lives, or destinies?  What force or influence,
what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human
beings and affect our development or fate?  
No amount of scientific-sounding jargon or computerized calculations
by astrologers can disguise this central problem with astrology - we
can find no evidence of a mechanism by which celestial objects can
influence us in so specific and personal a way... Some astrologers
argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents the
astrological influence... 
If so, astrological predictions - like those of any scientific field -
should be easily tested... Astrologers always claim to be just a
little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their efficacy, so
in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have generously
done such testing for them.  
There have been dozens of well-designed tests all around the world,
and astrology has failed every one of them... I propose that we let
those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest in the real (and
fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them keep us tied
to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by the
firelight, afraid of the night.
-- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, "Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury News, May 8, 1988


   Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   Weinberg's Principle:
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Mitchell's Law of Committees:
Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are
held to discuss it.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Death to all fanatics!
-- Anonymous


   ... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of
the person making the claim, not the critic.  It is not the responsibility
of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the
responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals
or colored lights never healed anyone.  The skeptic's role is to point out
claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidence and to
provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with
the accepted body of scientific evidence. ...
-- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215


   The wombat lives across the seas,
Among the far Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
Or then again, on missionaries;
His distant habitat precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods.
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.
-- "The Wombat"


   Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.
-- Seneca


   Persistence in one opinion has never been considered a merit in political
leaders.
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares", 1st century BCE


   "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to
puff and blow, "is to learn something.  That's the only thing that
never fails.  You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you
may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you
may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by
evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser
minds. There is only one thing for it then -- to learn.  Learn why the
world wags and what wags it.  That is the only thing which the mind
can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or
distrust, and never dream of regretting.  Learning is the only thing
for you.  Look what a lot of things there are to learn."
-- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"


   Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think
we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.
-- Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917 - )


   Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet. 
-- Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, poet, statesman (1790-1869)


   Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
-- Jules Feiffer


   All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no.
-- Susan Sontag (1933 - 2004)


   You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. 
-- Mario M Cuomo, 52nd Governor of NY (1932 - 2015), re-invogorated but not originated by him, as per Chris Cuomo on Cuomo Prime Time on 2019-07-08


   On a clear disk you can seek forever.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore 
good."  And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." 
-- John Brunner, science fiction writer (1934-1995) and William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (6 Jun 1860-1954)


   Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a
mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent
$600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his
experience?
-- Thomas J. Watson, industrialist (1874-1956)


   No two persons ever read the same book. 
-- Edmund Wilson, critic (1895-1972)


   To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
-- Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)


   A calamity that affects everyone is only half a calamity. 
-- An Italian Proverb


   We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked
through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of
bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient
proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last
of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one's own way.
-- Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)


   I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the
mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come
into this world alone; all leave it alone. 
-- Thomas De Quincey, writer (15 Aug 1785-1859)


   I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to
have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting
myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
me. 
-- Isaac Newton, philosopher and mathematician (1642-1727)


   Please subdue the anguish of your soul. Nobody is destined only to
happiness or to pain. The wheel of life takes one up and down by turn.
-- Kalidasa, dramatist (c. 4th century)


   To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour. 
-- William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)


   Without darkness there are no dreams. 
-- Karla Kuban, novelist


   You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat.
(The Zeroth Law Of Thermodynamics)
What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth.
(The first Law Of Thermodynamics)
You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing.
(The Second Law Of Thermodynamics)


   NSFW:
The chains of wedlock are so heavy it takes two people to carry them, 
sometimes three.
-- Alexandre Dumas


   I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart
like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain
unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep,
friends, love, everything. 
-- Nikola Tesla, electrical engineer and inventor (10 Jul 1856-1943)


   Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less
obvious as you begin to study the universe.  For example, there are no
solids in the universe.  There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
There are no absolute continuums.  There are no surfaces.  There are no
straight lines.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)


   It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth on a
higher standard of living than any have ever known.  It no longer has
to be you or me.  Selfishness is unnecessary.  War is obsolete.  It is
a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingly.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895 - July 1, 1983)


   We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has
to earn a living... We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea
that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because,
according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to
exist...
The true business of people should be to go back to school and think
about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came
along and told them they had to earn a living.
-- Richard Buckminster Fuller, American systems theorist, architect, and inventor (1895 - 1983)


   When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only
think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the
solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)


   We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them. 
-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   If the rich could hire someone else to die for them, the poor would 
make a wonderful living. 
-- Jewish Proverb


   By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
-- Dorothy Parker


   It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can
truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I
have for them. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for
what they are, not for what they say.
-- Thomas Merton, writer (1915-1968)


   Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not
they are worthy.
-- Thomas Merton, writer (1915-1968)


   To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, 
but he can never know that he is dead. 
-- Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)


   When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the
rest of the world. 
-- John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)


   May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to
the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the
clouds. 
-- Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)


   Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; 
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; 
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, 
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)


   How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our
thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another
in the waking state?
-- Plato


   If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of
success or fame, the gods have called him. 
-- Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (13 Nov 1850-1894)


   The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing
ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. 
-- Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (1850-1894)


   Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high
spirits. 
-- Robert Louis Stevenson


   UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you 'grave for me:
"Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
-- Requiem, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)


   NSFW:
Be nice to your grandparents, be nice to your parents, and be nice to
animals.  Because your grandparents can't hurt you, your parents CAN
hurt you, but animals... well, animals can bite you.
-- Sajjid Khan, host of "Ikke Pe Ikka"


   "Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an "ism" in the sense of a belief
or dogma.  It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is
counterfeit and what is genuine.  And a recognition of how costly it may
be to fail to do so.  To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in
the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own
allegiances.  To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim.
-- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility,"  New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988


   Lend money to a bad debtor and he will hate you.
-- Anonymous


   For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in
despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the
implacable grandeur of this life.
-- Albert Camus


   NSFW:
If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have
schizophrenia.
-- Thomas Szasz


   Yea from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records.
-- Hamlet


   I have gained this by philosophy:
that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
-- Aristotle


   Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers.  My
opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.  There's many a bestseller
that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
-- Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964)


   Imbalance of power corrupts and monopoly of power corrupts absolutely.
-- Genji


   Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet.
-- Anonymous


   Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.
-- Bette Davis


   Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him
is not at home.
-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)


   "Zindagi toh bewafaa hain, ek din thook raye gi;
Maot mehbooba hai, apney saath ley kar jayegi"
[Life is unfaithful, and will reject you one day;
Death is a true beloved, and will always take you with her]
-- Muqqadar Ka Sikander


   "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny
them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher and writer (c. 3 BCE - 65 CE)


   "Aaj mera waqt kharab hai, waqt neh mujhe mara hai, is liye tu bhi
mujhe maar leh... aaj jaha tera naam hai, ek din mera naam ho ga."
[My time is bad today, time has beaten me up, so you can beat me up,
too... but where your name is today, one day will bear my name]
-- Muqqadar Ka Sikander


   NSFW:
Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children.
Life is the other way around.
-- David Lodge, "The British Museum is Falling Down"


   Life is mostly froth and bubble, 
Two things stand like stone, 
Kindness in another's trouble, 
Courage in your own. 
-- Adam Lindsay Gordon, poet (1833-1870)


   To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient
solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
-- H. Poincare


   The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky


   To err is human - but it feels divine.
-- Mae West


   Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
-- Anonymous


   A good marriage would be between a blind wife and deaf husband.
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half
by our children.
-- Clarence Darrow


   Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. 
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, writer and philosopher (c. 3 BCE - 65 CE)


   NSFW:
The man who understands one woman is qualified to understand pretty well
everything.
-- Yeats


   Suffering alone exists, none who suffer;
The deed there is, but no doer thereof;
Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it;
The Path there is, but none who travel it.
-- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values


   You are the sky. Everything else - it's just the weather. 
-- Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun and author (b. 14 Jul 1936)


   Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.  Don't overdo it.
-- Lao Tsu


   Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. 
-- Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist (1930- )


   The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor,
to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
-- Anatole France


   Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around
the sun.  At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when
evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person
can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact.  That all
present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic
time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology.  Biologists differ
only with respect to theories about how the process operates.
-- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131


   The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available
data.  Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon
shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold,
as the light of seven days."  Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times
as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all.  The light we
receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the
Sun, so we can ignore that.  With these data we can compute the temperature
of Heaven.  The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where
the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation,
i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation.  Using
the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute
temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C).  The exact
temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the
temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas.
Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."  A lake of molten
brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point,
or 444.6C  (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.)  We have,
then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
-- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972


   At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense.  Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism:  The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing,"
it's the money.
-- Kim Hubbard


   Life is a grand adventure or it is nothing.
-- Helen Keller


   The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   To think contrary to one's era is heroism.  But to speak against it is madness.
-- Eugene Ionesco


   And I will do all these good works, and I will do them for free!
My only reward will be a tombstone that says "Here lies Gomez Addams -
he was good for nothing."
-- Jack Sharkey, The Addams Family


   Sam:   What do you know there, Norm?
Norm:  How to sit.  How to drink.  Want to quiz me?
-- Cheers, Loverboyd


   Sam:   Hey, how's life treating you there, Norm?
Norm:  Beats me...  Then it kicks me and leaves me for dead.
-- Cheers, Loverboyd


   Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Pretty nervous if I was in the room.
-- Cheers, Loverboyd


   I have learned silence from the talkative,
tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind.
-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when
you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"


   I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli-
gence?"  I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there,
and use the word *billions*, and so on.  And then I say it would be astonishing
to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as
yet no compelling evidence for it.  And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you
really think?"  I say, "I just told you what I really think."  "Yeah, but 
what's your gut feeling?"  But I try not to think with my gut.  Really, it's
okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind
of thing.  Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation
of these atoms is talking moonshine.
-- Ernest Rutherford, after he had split the atom for the first time


   A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to
you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to
you about yourself.
-- Lisa Kirk


   If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of
rubbish into it.
-- William Orton


   Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted.  In every
relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive.  If you
really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the end.
For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities
I most admired in myself I gave up.  I stopped being loud and bossy ...
Oh, all right.  I was still loud and bossy, but only behind his back.
-- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn


   Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old
people are works of art.  
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)


   Nature uses as little as possible of anything. 
- Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571-1630)


   Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a
friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. 
-- Franklin P. Jones, businessman (1887-1929)


   The universe is ruled by letting things take their course.  It cannot be
ruled by interfering.
-- Chinese proverb


   You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history
of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the
things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with
all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.
-- James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)


   Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can 
have.
-- James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)


   I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly
for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
-- James Baldwin, writer (2 Aug 1924-1987)


   Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but
they have never failed to imitate them. 
-- James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)


   Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if
one went to Harvard).
-- Edgar R. Fiedler


   Never appeal to a man's "better nature."  He may not have one.
Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
-- Lazarus Long


   I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the
stars.
-- Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)


   The master programmer moves from program to program without fear.  No
change in management can harm him.  He will not be fired, even if the project
is canceled. Why is this?  He is filled with the Tao.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"


   We laugh at the Indian philosopher, who to account for the support
of the earth, contrived the hypothesis of a huge elephant, and to support
the elephant, a huge tortoise.  If we will candidly confess the truth, we
know as little of the operation of the nerves, as he did of the manner in
which the earth is supported: and our hypothesis about animal spirits, or
about the tension and vibrations of the nerves, are as like to be true, as
his about the support of the earth.  His elephant was a hypothesis, and our
hypotheses are elephants.  Every theory in philosophy, which is built on
pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly
by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose
feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay.
-- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764


   Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink
that they may live.
-- Socrates


   If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
-- Wittgenstein


   We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if only words were
taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things
themselves.
-- John Locke


   I don't need time. What I need is a deadline. 
-- Duke Ellington, jazz pianist, composer, and conductor (1899-1974)


   Jazz arises from a spirit of love, it comes from the mind and heart
and goes through the fingertips. 
-- Mary Lou Williams, pianist, arranger, and composer (8 May 1910-1981)


   Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.
-- Leonardo da Vinci


   If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
-- William Baumol


   The University of California Statistics Department; where mean is normal,
and deviation standard.
-- Anonymous


   Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
stupidity. 
-- Hanlon's Razor


   People hate as they love: unreasonably.
-- William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)


   Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
-- Walt Kelly, Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. (1913 - 1973), American cartoonist


   How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our
thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another
in the waking state?
-- Plato


   NSFW:
The onset and the waning of love make themselves felt in the uneasiness
experienced at being alone together.
-- Jean de la Bruyere


   "People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that."
-- Homer Simpson, __The Simpsons__


   It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate
between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital
connection between them.
-- Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)


   Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word,
a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,
all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
-- Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor (31 Mar 1924-1998)


   Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vaccuum tubes and
weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes
and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons.
-- Popular Mechanics, March 1949


   Try to learn something about everything and everything about
something. 
-- Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)


   to be nobody but yourself in a world 
which is doing its best night and day
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
any human being can fight and
never stop fighting.                   
-- e e cummings, poet (1894-1962)


   Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims"


   Virtue is a relative term.
-- Spock, Star Trek, "Friday's Child", stardate 3499.1


   And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine.
-- William Wordsworth, "She Was a Phantom of Delight" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to software interrupts.]


   We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of
those we don't like? 
-- Jean Cocteau, author and painter (5 Jul 1889-1963)


   Veni, vidi, vici.
[I came, I saw, I conquered].
-- Gaius Julius Caesar


   NSFW:
This guy runs into his house and yells to his wife, "Kathy, pack up your
bags!  I just won the California lottery!"
"Honey!", Kathy exclaims, "Shall I pack for warm weather or cold?"
"I don't care," responds the husband. "just so long as you're out
of the house by dinner!"
-- Anonymous


   Facts are the enemy of truth.
-- Don Quixote


   "If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry."
-- Chekhov


   Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also
deprive me of the possibility of being right.
-- Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)


   An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.
-- James McNeill Whistler, painter (1834-1903)


   Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.
-- Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian


   Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.
-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)


   Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more
uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right
and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of
men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped
them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always   
skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is  
based on "I am not too sure."
-- H.L.Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)


   The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so
much as to make settled things strange.
-- G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)


   NSFW:
If a triangle could speak, it would say, that God is eminently triangular,
while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular.
-- Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (1632-1677)


   NSFW:
If triangles had a God, he would have three sides. 
-- Charles de Montesquieu, philosopher and writer (18 Jan 1689-1755)


   The course of true love never did run smooth.
-- William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)


   Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president (1809-1865)


   Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed
from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds.
-- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"


   Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. 
-- Fred Brooks, computer scientist (19 Apr 1931-2022)


   As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
-- Thomas A. Edison


   The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What
happens is that the family 'gets together' alone.
-- Ashley Montagu, anthropologist and writer (1905-1999)


   The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control emotions
by the application of reason.
-- Marya Mannes, American writer and critic (1904 - 1990)


   If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light.  Take off all
your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.
-- Glenn Clark


   He who would travel happily must travel light. 
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (29 Jun 1900-1944)


   I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup, designer of C++ (1950- )


   Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, 
and you're hampered by not having any, 
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, 
is simply by spinning a penny. 
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair 
while you're passively standing there moping; 
but the moment the penny is up in the air, 
you suddenly know what you're hoping. 
-- Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)


   I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a
living death?
-- Aurelius Augustinus, Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine), 354-430 CE


   Universe, n.:
The problem.


   Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a
mountain in a fog.  But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside
than in bed.  What kind of man would live where there is no daring?
And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure?
Is there a better way to die?
-- Charles Lindbergh


   The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be
correct.
-- William of Occam


   By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.  In fact, it is as
difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


   He jests at scars who never felt a wound.
-- Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet, II. 2"


   I'd never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member.
-- Groucho Marx


   Romance, like alcohol, should be enjoyed, but should not be allowed to
become necessary.
-- Edgar Friedenberg


   The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time. 
-- William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)


   It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's
a visa, and it runs out fast. 
-- Julie Burchill, writer and journalist (b. 3 Jul 1959)


   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.
-- Chuang-tzu


   Herodotous says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the
rest do not happen at all.  The conscientious historian will correct
these defects." 
-- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Acknowledgments for __A Horse's Tale__


   Men freely believe that what they wish to desire.
-- Julius Caesar


   Let early education be a sort of amusement, you will then better be able to
find out the natural bent of the child.
-- Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)


   Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, 
Or what's a heaven for?
-- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto"


   It is never the shallower for the calmnesse. The Sea is a deepe, there is
as much water in the Sea, in a calme, as in a storme.
-- John Donne, poet (1573-1631)


   No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.
-- Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)


   NSFW:
Woman was God's second mistake.
-- Nietzsche


   Dustin Farnum:  Why, yesterday, I had the audience glued to their seats!
Oliver Herford: Wonderful!  Wonderful!  Clever of you to think of it!
-- Brian Herbert, "Classic Comebacks"


   NSFW:
If you're constantly being mistreated, you're cooperating with the treatment.
-- Anonymous


   Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.
-- Roger Price


   You are never too old to be what you might have been. 
-- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)


   To be or not to be.
-- Shakespeare
To do is to be.
-- Nietzsche
To be is to do.
-- Sartre
Do be do be do.
-- Sinatra


   NSFW:
Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me why the sky's so blue,
And I will tell you just why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Phototropism makes ivy twine,
Rayleigh scattering makes sky so blue,
Sexual hormones are why I love you.


   NSFW:
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little. 
-- Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)


   The secret of joy is the mastery of pain. 
-- Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)


   "A philosopher ... is a sort of intellectual yokel who gapes and
stares at what sensible people take for granted, a person who cannot
get rid of the feeling that the barest facts of everyday life are
unbelievably odd."
-- Alan Watts


   Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it
is and not as it should be!
-- Miguel de Cervantes, writer (1547-1616)


   He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his
own.
-- Confucius (c. 551-478 BCE)


   There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give
cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind. 
-- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, author (1689-1762)


   But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain
For promised joy.
-- Robert Burns, "To a Mouse", 1785


   The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but 
progress.
-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)


   "You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then
I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the
terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve
them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and
unfairness of the universe." 
-- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5 "A Late Delivery from Avalon"


   Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave, 
let him obey his conscience.
-- James Freeman Clarke


   Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes
deviates, though one often perceives irregularities when directing
one's course by it, one must still try to follow its direction.
-- Vincent van Gogh, painter (30 Mar 1853-1890)


   What we wish, that we readily believe.
-- Demosthenes


   I always pass on good advice.  It is the only thing to do with it.
It is never any good to oneself.
-- Oscar Wilde, "An Ideal Husband"


   NSFW:
"Yes, the American troops have advanced further. This will only make it easier for us to defeat them."
"There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"
"My feelings, as usual, we will slaughter them all."
"Our initial assessment is that they will all die."
"We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein's soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly."
-- Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf ("Baghdad Bob"), press conferences in 2003


   If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get
the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude.  See in
college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural
method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall
learn what you have no taste or capacity for.  The college, which should
be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the
young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits.
I would have the studies elective.  Scholarship is to be created not
by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge.  The wise
instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the
attractions the study has for himself.  The marking is a system for schools,
not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to
put on a professor.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


   Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
-- David Dunham


   NSFW:
"There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers.
While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain."
-- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800


   Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
-- Hector Berlioz


   "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is
possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something
is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
-- Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917 - )


   The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
procession but carrying a banner.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. 
-- Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)


   Beauty is the purgation of superfluities. 
-- Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (6 Mar 1475-1564)


   Words form the thread on which we string our experiences.
-- Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)


   Voodoo Programming:  Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but
they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling
everything.
-- Karl Lehenbauer


   I got the bill for my surgery.  Now I know what those doctors were
wearing masks for.
-- James Boren


   Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore
avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
-- Socrates, philosopher (469?-399 BCE)


   NSFW:
A successful man is one who makes more money than a wife can spend. A
successful woman is one who can find such a man.
-- Lana Turner, actress (1921-1995)


   "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917 - )


   It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)


   When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they
do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.
-- Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)


   Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down
to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a
generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit
for all the evil they refrain from.
-- Honore De Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)


   The heart of a mother is a deep abyss, at the bottom of which you will
always find forgiveness. 
-- Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)


   Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
-- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)


   "In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French.  I never
did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. "
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   "We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient
characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, 'here
and now,' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us
point-blank."
-- Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), Spanish writer, author


   NSFW:
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)


   There is no one, no matter how wise he is, who has not in his youth said
things or done things that are so unpleasant to recall in later life that
he would expunge them entirely from his memory if that were possible.
-- Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)


   He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged
justly? 
-- Lord Byron, poet (22 Jan 1788-1824)


   In solitude, when we are least alone.
-- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)


   "Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."
-- John Cotton Dana, 1912


   A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see 
that life is two locked boxes 
each containing the other's key. 
-- Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)


   Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; Some
blunders and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow
is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be
encumbered with your old nonsense.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.
-- Hippocrates, physician (460-c.377 BCE)


   "What time is it?"
"I don't know, it keeps changing."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.
-- Publilius Syrus


   I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.
-- Joe Walsh


   It is Fortune, not Wisdom, that rules man's life.
-- Anonymous


   Of all men's miseries, the bitterest is this:
to know so much and have control over nothing.
-- Herodotus, Greek historian (c. 484 - c. 425 BCE), "The Father of History"


   NSFW:
"It says he made us all to be just like him.  So if we're dumb, then God is
dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side."
-- Frank Zappa


   I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting:
a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower


   I really hate this damned machine
I wish that they would sell it.
It never does quite what I want
But only what I tell it.
-- Anonymous


   The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
-- Mark Twain


   Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.
-- Benjamin Disraeli


   Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
-- Anonymous


   It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.
-- Aeschylus


   In a great romance, each person basically plays a part that the
other really likes.
-- Elizabeth Ashley


   Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
-- Oscar Wilde


   In the misfortune of our friends we find something that is not displeasing
to us.
-- La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims"


   Say!  You've struck a heap of trouble--
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you'd die--
Why, you've still the sunshine left you
And the big blue sky.
-- R.W. Service


   A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
that the system works.
-- William E. Vaughan (1915 - 1977), Journalist and Author


   No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and
he's not the same man.
-- Heraclitus, philosopher (c. 540-470 BCE)


   It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
-- Anonymous


   Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time.  So long
as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks
into, there is room for lateral movement.  Once this begins, its rate is
a matter of discretion.
-- Corwin, Prince of Amber


   We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
-- La Rochefoucauld


   Great acts are made up of small deeds.
-- Lao Tsu


   To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I
respond, 'There are always two people: the photographer and the
viewer.'
-- Ansel Adams, photographer (1902-1984)


   There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. 
-- Ansel Adams, photographer (20 Feb 1902-1984)


   Time sure flies when you don't know what you're doing.
-- Anonymous


   No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even
bored, solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on
himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
-- Jack Kerouac


   NSFW:
Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom. A theme
for a great poet would be God's boredom on the seventh day of
creation.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche


   Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In
the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and
gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of
it because, in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and
life itself is grace.
-- Frederic Buechner, American writer and theologian (1926 - )


   Out of boredom can come chaos, surprise, and enlightenment.
-- Myrdene Anderson


   Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is
the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his
boredom when it comes not merely philosophically but almost with
pleasure. 
-- Aldous Huxley


   There is pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is rapture in the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes, 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 
I love not man the less, but nature more. 
-- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)


   Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
-- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)


   Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you
food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but
not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or
happiness.
-- Henrik Ibsen, playwright (1828-1906)


   Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at
different speeds.  A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
-- Clive James


   Prof:   This is the chance for Fry to test my experimental anti-pressure pill. (takes out a giant pill) 
Fry:    I can't swallow that!
Prof:   Well, then, good news! It's a suppository.
-- Futurama


   Leela:  I'm going to remind Fry of his humanity the way only a woman can.
Prof:   You're going to do his laundry?
-- Futurama


   Fry:    Full price for gum!?  That dog won't hunt, Monsignor.
-- Futurama


   Fry:    I'm not a one-woman man, Leela.
Leela:  You'll be back to zero soon enough.
-- Futurama


   Prof:   Pfff!  Superstitious robot mumbo-jumbo!
2ACV18: Mumbo? perhaps.  Jumbo?  Perhaps not!  With all your modern science, are you any closer to understanding the mystery of how a robot walks or talks?
Prof:   Yes, you idiot!  The circuit diagram is right here on the inside of your case! (opens case door)
2ACV18: I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe!
-- Futurama


   Bender: It's Leela's stupid emotions. Why can't she just drink herself happy like a normal person. 
-- Futurama


   Professor: Nothing is impossible!  Not if you can imagine it!  That's what being a scientist is all about!
Qubert:    No... that's what being a magical elf is all about.
-- Futurama, A Clone of My Own


   Fry: I don't regret this... but I both rue and lament it.
-- Futurama, The Cryonic Woman


   Hermes: Dating an ex? Have you lost all self-respect, Fry???
Fry:    All what?
-- Futurama, The Cryonic Woman


   Leela:  Careful with that Doomsday device, Bender.
Bender:	What does it matter?  I'll never be a Globe Trotter.  My life, and by extension everyone else's, is meaningless.
Leela:  Roger.
-- Futurama, Time Keeps On Slipping


   NSFW:
Bender:	My fembot may be in love with another manbot!
Leela:  Well, talk to her.  Tell her about your feelings in an open and honest way.
Fry:    Yeah.  Either that or be a man.
-- Futurama, Bendless Love


   Michelle: I love you!  Don't you love me?
Fry:      Well... sure... to the extent a man *can* love a woman...
-- Futurama, The Cryonic Woman


   Woody:  Can I pour you a draft, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:   A little early, isn't it Woody?
Woody:  For a beer?
Norm:   No, for stupid questions.
-- Cheers, Let Sleeping Drakes Lie


   NSFW:
What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's
transparency.
-- George Nathan


   "Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons 
for it afterwards."
-- Soren F. Petersen


   For knighthood is not in the feats of war,
As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong,
But in a cause which truth cannot defer:
He ought himself for to make sure and strong,
Just to keep mixt with mercy among:
And no quarrel a knight ought to take
But for a truth, or for the common's sake.
-- Stephen Hawes


   Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
-- C.G. Jung


   f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   "To take a significant step forward, you must make a series of finite 
improvements."
-- Donald J. Atwood, General Motors


   I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that
either.
-- Jack Benny


   Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones.
-- Anonymous


   When my freshman roommate at Cornell found out I was Jewish, she was,
at her request, moved to a different room.  She told me she didn't
think she had ever seen a Jew before.  My only response was to begin
wearing a small Star of David on a chain around my neck.  I had not
become a more observing Jew; rather, discovering that the label of Jew
was offensive to others made me want to let people know who I was and
what I believed in.
-- Susan Bolotin, "Voices From the Post-Feminist Generation"


   Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.  If your ideas are any good,
you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
-- Howard Aiken


   NSFW:
Beauty, n.:
The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914),  The Devil's Dictionary


   I am a man: nothing human is alien to me.
-- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence)


   "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,
"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh.  "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.  "It's the same thing," he said.
-- Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne


   If you can count your money you don't have a billion dollars.
-- J. Paul Getty (1892-1976)


   The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of
gore.
-- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)


   QOTD:
"Sure, I turned down a drink once.  Didn't understand the question."
-- Anonymous


   NSFW:
In the faces of men and women I see God.
-- Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)


   After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics,
conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally
satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains. 
-- Walt Whitman, poet (31 May 1819-1892)


   NSFW:
If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same
race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by   
noon. 
-- George D. Aiken, US senator (1892-1984)


   A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which
is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was
yesterday.
-- Alexander Pope, poet (1688-1744)


   As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly
unchanged.  And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware
of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting
victims of the darkness.
-- William O. Douglas, judge (1898-1980)


   Leela:  Fry, this isn't TV, it's real life.  Can't you tell the
difference? 
Fry:    Sure, I just like TV better.
-- Futurama, When Aliens Attack


   NSFW:
Amy:    Oh, come on, Leela... deep down, all girls want to be Miss Universe.
Leela:  Not me.
Amy:    Really?  Maybe it's just cute girls.
-- Futurama, Lesser of Two Evils


   NSFW:
Fry:    So that's my story, Father Changstein Al-gamal.  Is there
anything religion can do to help me find my friend?
Father: Well, we could join together in prayer.
Fry:    Uh huh... but is there anything useful we can do?
Father: No.
-- Futurama, Godfellas


   Leela:  It'll take more than deadly, deadly bees to keep us from doing
our jobs.  Come on, boys!
Fry:    But Leela, we're no good!
Leela:  Listen, I'm scared, too.  But I'm more scared of disappointing
myself. 
Fry:    I'm not scared of that at all!
-- Futurama, The Sting


   NSFW:
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do
because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
-- Susan B. Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)


   Gambling may be a disease but it's the only disease where you can win
a bunch of money.
-- Norm MacDonald, Comedian


   The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth; whether
it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth.  It is
the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based.  And if you can't
find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what
happened, then you don't deserve to wear that uniform.
-- Ronald D. Moore and Naren Shankar writing for Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The First Duty"


   We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches,
it's all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly
it threatens to start all over again... the road from legitimate
suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think.
-- Jeri Taylor writing for Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Drumhead"


   The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look
at the men he has around him.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (1469-1527)


   The best writing is rewriting. 
-- E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)


   If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if
he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)


   When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life
stands explained. 
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910), Notebook, 1898


   If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of
time looking for him further.
-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)


   The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. 
-- L.P. Hartley, writer (1895-1972)


   I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.
-- Antonio Porchia, writer (1886-1968)


   Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice;
nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and
publicity.
-- Lord Acton, historian (1834-1902)


   NSFW:
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshipped anything but himself.
-- Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer, and writer (1821-1890)


   He's the best physician who knows the worthlessness of the most
medicines. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. 
-- Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)


   I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
-- Howard A. Walter (1883-1918)


   It is only the great men who are truly obscene.  If they had not dared
to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.
-- Havelock Ellis


   I would encourage people to look around them in their community and
find an organization that is doing something that they believe in,
even if that organization has only five people, or ten people, or
twenty people, or a hundred people. And to look at history and
understand that when change takes place it takes place as a result of
large, large numbers of people doing little things unbeknownst to one
another. And that history is very important for people to not get
discouraged. ... 
History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if
they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a
vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they
do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of
energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they
are, then change takes place.
-- Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, and social activist (24 Aug 1922-2010)


   Give people what they need: food, medicine, clean air, pure water,
trees and grass, pleasant homes to live in, some hours of work, more
hours of leisure. Don't ask who deserves it. Every human being
deserves it.
-- Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, and social activist (24 Aug 1922-2010), __Marx in Soho: A Play on History__


   No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. 
-- Turkish proverb


   It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of
common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me
forever ineligible for public office.
-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956), https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
really care to know.
-- Anonymous


   Patience is also a form of action. 
-- Auguste Rodin, sculptor (1840-1917)


   For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.
-- Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (1944-2017)


   This life is yours.  Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself.
-- Anonymous


   We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is
in it - and stop there.
-- Mark Twain


   My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm
selling yeast.
-- Miguel de Unamuno, writer and philosopher (1864-1936)


   I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so.
-- John Donne


   Substitute damn every time you're inclined to write very; your editor
will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   NSFW:
Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer.
It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who
watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide
people to follow His precepts - there is just too much misery and
cruelty for that.  On the other hand, I respect and envy the people 
who get inspiration from their religions.
-- Benjamin Spock


   Knowing ignorance is strength; ignoring knowledge is sickness. 
-- Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)


   Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.
-- Stephen Swid, Executive (b. 1941)


   NSFW:
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
War is peace.
-- George Orwell


   To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water
exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening
saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a
bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards
of the simple life.
-- John Burroughs, naturalist and writer (1837-1921)


   Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president (1809-1865)


   "Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it."
-- Coach Vince Lombardi (?)


   "At every occasion in your life, do not forget to commune with
yourself and ask of yourself how you can profit by it."
-- Epictetus


   Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a
thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new
month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals
who ring bells and fire off pistols.
-- Thomas Mann, novelist, Nobel laureate (1875-1955)


   A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with
a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron.
-- Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)


   If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for
truth, and he will find both. 
-- Horace Mann, educational reformer (4 May 1796-1859)


   The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love
stop at the border?
-- Pablo Casals, cellist, conductor, and composer (1876-1973)


   NSFW:
"It is a sad fact that fifty percent of marriages in this country end
in divorce.  But hey, the other half end in death.  You could be one
of the lucky ones!"
-- Richard Jeni


   To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes
men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think
makes men martyrs or reformers - or both.
-- Elizabeth Charles, writer (1828-1896)


   To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god. 
-- Jorge Luis Borges, writer (1899-1986)


   If you're going through hell, keep going. 
-- Sir Winston Churchill


   True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights.
If you hear bells, get your ears checked.
-- Erich Segal


   Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.
-- William Shakespeare


   I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has
read. 
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the
universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
-- Stephen Crane, writer (1871-1900)


   NSFW:
Nyquist said, 'The trouble with you, Selig, is that you're a deeply
religious man who doesn't happen to believe in God.'  Nyquist was
always saying things like that, and Selig never could be sure whether
he meant them or was just playing verbal games.
-- Robert Silverberg, _Dying Inside_


   In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to
contemplate.  
-- Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)


   There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. 
-- French proverb


   And Silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound. 
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)


   There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the
wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   NSFW:
"We forgot."
-- Alexander Hamilton, on the omission of God from the U.S. Constitution.


   "Bob said he wants to do three things with the rest of his life: make
art every day; eat great food, because he loves to eat; and
sleep... because he loves his dreams."
-- George Herms, Assemblage Artist, at a lecture March 18, 2005,
speaking about his good friend, artist Robert Rauschenberg, who
recently suffered a stroke and is now wheelchair bound.


   Sermon, n.:
An inspired message directed mainly at those who are not in attendance.
-- Wiley's Dictionary, B.C. 2005-03-24


   Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your
hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose
them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.
-- Carl Schurz, general and politician (1829-1906)


   I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be
what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it
beautiful.
-- John Constable, painter (1776-1837)


   Time wears away error and polishes truth. 
-- Gaston Pierre Marc, Duc de Levis, writer (1764-1830)


   "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people
think. This rule is hard, because you will always find those who think
they know what is your duty better than you know it."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


   Loneliness... is and always has been the central and inevitable
experience of every man.
-- Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)


   I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself. 
-- Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)


   It's impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your
country, and your principles, all at the same time.
-- Mignon McLaughlin, author (1915-)


   NSFW:
"When [men] say you're our soulmate, we really mean you have a nice ***."
-- Artie Lange, Howard Stern Show, 2004-09-09, 95 minutes.


   Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." 
-- Pablo Picasso


   "Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." 
-- Groucho Marx


   NSFW:
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car
keys to teenage boys. 
-- P. J. O'Rourke


   If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn't have a job if
he was any smarter. 
-- John Gotti


   Experience is a dear teacher, and only fools will learn from no
other. 
-- Benjamin Franklin


   "Detachment is when, rather than feeling like you are losing them, you
know they are losing you."
-- Anonymous


   "Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional"
-- Anonymous


   To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of
medicine.
-- Henry Ward Beecher, preacher, and writer (1813-1887)


   Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is
not without comforts and hopes.
-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)


   Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them.
-- Will Rogers


   She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.  
-- Zelda Fitzgerald, 1922


   NSFW:
In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they
are in love with love. 
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)


   "Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
But my how we improve the score,
As we practice more and more."
-- Sir Walter Scott, __Marmion__, canto vi (1771 - 1832)


   It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to
one's own suffering. 
-- Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)


   "If you cannot convince them, confuse them."
-- Harry S. Truman


   Wesley: I miss her.  I feel empty.
Guinan: I know that sensation.  But there'll come a time when all
you'll remember is the love.
Wesley: I'm never going to feel this way about anyone else.
Guinan: You're right.
Wesley: I didn't expect you to say that.
Guinan: There'll be others.  But every time you feel love, it'll be
different.  Every time it's different.
Wesley: Knowing that doesn't make it any easier.
Guinan: It's not supposed to.
-- Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Dauphin", 1989


   Who has not for the sake of his reputation sacrificed himself?
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   NSFW:
God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and
religions.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're
dead. 
-- Leo Rosten, author (1908-1997)


   Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of
science makes skepticism a virtue. 
-- Robert King Merton, sociologist (1910-2003)


   As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more
and more. 
-- Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)


   You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell
whether a man is wise by his questions.
-- Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian writer (1911 - 2006)


   "The fact is, as we said at the beginning of our discussion, that the
aspiring speaker needs no knowledge of the truth about what is right
or good... In courts of justice no attention is paid whatever to the
truth about such topics; all that matters is plausibility... There are
even some occasions when both prosecution and defence should
positively suppress the facts in favor of probability, if the facts
are improbable. Never mind the truth -- pursue probability through
thick and thin in every kind of speech; the whole secret of the art of
speaking lies in consistent adherence to this principle."
-- Socrates, in Plato's Phaedrus


   By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
-- Confucius


   NSFW:
SOBER: Son Of a Bitch, Everything's Real
-- Gary Busey, actor


   A sneer is the weapon of the weak. 
-- James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)


   The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self,
the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his
religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own
business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind
off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)


   New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any
other reason but because they are not already common. 
-- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)


   The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me
what I thought, and attended to my answer. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and
actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   There is a field beyond all notions of right and wrong. Come, meet me
there. 
-- Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273)


   The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it;
but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. 
-- Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)


   How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward. 
-- Spanish proverb


   Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings. 
-- W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)


   Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties,
nations, and epochs, it is the rule. 
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story,
and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the
volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
-- J.M. Barrie, novelist, and playwright (1860-1937)


   Because we don't understand the brain very well we're constantly
tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to
understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain
was a telephone switchboard. (What else could it be?) And I was amused
to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought
that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared
the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. Leibniz compared
it to a mill, and now, obviously, the metaphor is the digital
computer.
-- John R. Searle, philosophy professor (1932- )


   "Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by
Reasoning he never acquired"
-- Jonathan Swift, satirist (30 Nov 1667-1745), https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/10/reason-out/
Variation: "You can't reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde


   Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason. 
-- James Randi, magician and scientific skeptic (7 Aug 1928-2020)


   No amount of belief makes something a fact. 
-- James Randi, magician and skeptic (b. 7 Aug 1928)


   Your feelings have already started making facts. Feelings are not
facts. So you have to be responsible in making sure that you're
managing what you feel, instead of thinking you have the power to turn
it into a fact just because that's gonna help you explain what you
feel... because a lot of it really is about managing yourself.
-- Nicole LaBeach, Relationship Coach, __Put a Ring on It__, Season 2, Episode 11 Reunion


   A Man is to be cheated into Passion, but to be reason'd into Truth.
-- John Dryden, English poet (1631 - 1700)


   Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it
will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, or a new
country.
-- Anais Nin, author (1903-1977)


   If you want to work on your art, work on your life. 
-- Anton Chekhov, short-story writer and dramatist (1860-1904)


   "Be kind. For everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
-- Philos of Alexandria


   When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire
kind people.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)


   I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as
the greatest of dangers to be feared.  To preserve our independence, we must
not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.  If we run into such debts, we
must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts,
in our labor and in our amusements.  If we can prevent the government from
wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they
will be happy.
-- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)


   Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could
do only a little. 
-- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)


   NSFW:
My wife's the same way; when they marry you, they love the ground you
walk on.  And every year, more and more, they start to think they're
better than you.
-- King of all Blacks, Howard Stern Show, 2005-08-09


   For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live
in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner
... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion
galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit,
and it is very good for us to understand that.
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. 
-- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)


   We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we
love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed
person.
-- William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)


   We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment
when alone together.
-- Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)


   NSFW:
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't
change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. 
-- Roger Ebert, film-critic (1942 - 2013)


   'Kindness' covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them
out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we
have done something to make others a little happier, and something to
make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To
make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where
all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is
true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We
must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough
to find it out.
-- Roger Ebert, American journalist, film critic, and screenwriter (1942 - 2013)


   The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of
capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were
able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the
notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to
define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there? 
-- Roger Ebert, film critic (18 Jun 1942-2013)


   I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were
of one religion. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? 
-- Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)


   We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it
shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with
the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts:
what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
-- Dale Carnegie, author and educator (1888-1955)


   Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is
passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. 
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me
for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. 
-- Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)


   "Time and I against any two."
-- Spanish Proverb


   Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by
silence.  
-- Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)


   People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of
foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.
-- Alice Walker, writer (1944- )


   Half the truth is often a great lie. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and
be free. 
-- Nikos Kazantzakis, writer (1883-1957)


   It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I
have not had time to remake the world. 
-- Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)


   "The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It
will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the
discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit,
and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and
misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day
is marred."
-- The Nation, Founding Prospectus, 1865


   Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer, and philosopher (1803-1882)


   The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. 
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (1906-2001)


   The best politics is right action. 
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)


   Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half of
the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
-- Bertrand Russell


   I fear nothing, I hope for nothing, I am free. 
-- Nikos Kazantzakis, poet, and novelist (1883-1957)


   NSFW:
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when
it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. 
-- Anne Lamott, writer (1954- )


   NSFW:
The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised
religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have
frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost
always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and
bigotry, superstition, exploitation, and the preservation of vested
interests. 
-- Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India (14 Nov 1889-1964)


   Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields
and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute
nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention
of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of
attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the
overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
-- Herbert Alexander Simon, economist, Nobel laureate (1916-2001)


   What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
-- Theodore Roethke, poet (1908-1963)


   Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind. 
-- Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)


   The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born?
Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think
about these once in a while and watch your answers change.
-- Richard Bach, writer (1936- )


   NSFW:
When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is 
slavery. 
-- Maxim Gorky, author (1868-1936)


   Even historians fail to learn from history - they repeat the same mistakes.
-- John Gill, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7


   If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock,
not selling advice. 
-- Norman R. Augustine, industrialist (1935- )


   if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) {
printf("Don't Panic!\n");
exit(42);
}
-- Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS


   One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one 
person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute. 
-- William Feather, author, editor, and publisher (1889-1981)


   There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. 
-- Leonard Cohen, musician (1934- )


   A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise
against the wind, not with it.
-- Anonymous (Winston Churchill or John Neal, author and critic (25 Aug 1793-1876))


   I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller
boy.  I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the
babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the
human race.
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)


   NSFW:
No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human
being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying
behavior to sin; he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I
shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find
out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating
human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of
our holy religion. 
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (18 May 1872-1970)


   There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all. 
-- Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971)


   The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to
write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. 
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day
after the revolution. 
-- Hannah Arendt, historian and philosopher (1906-1975)


   Look into any man's heart you please, and you will always find, in
every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed. 
-- Henrik Ibsen, playwright (1828-1906)


   Revolution, n.:
In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914),  The Devil's Dictionary


   Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then
you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's
worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.
-- Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, writer (1873-1954)


   You teach best what you most need to learn.
-- Richard Bach, author (1936-)


   Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone.
-- Pyrrhus


   NSFW:
Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Remember, if a million people believe in a foolish thing, it is still
a foolish thing.
-- Anatole France.


   No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied
occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an
indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence
different from the one identified by the given indication as an
indication-applied occurrence.
-- ALGOL 68 Report


   The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds
the other fellow of a dull one.
-- Sid Caesar


   NSFW:
Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex.
-- Ellyn Mustard


   The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on
weather forecasters.
-- Jean-Paul Kauffmann


   Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic
striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time,
though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to
start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness. 
-- Brenda Ueland, journalist, editor, and writer (24 Oct 1891-1985)


   At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on
the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is
quite untrue in practice.  Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather
than blinkers it.
-- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"


   Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and
go to work. 
-- Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947)


   My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director. 
-- Cole Porter, composer and songwriter (1893-1964)


   One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy. 
-- E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)


   Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge. 
-- Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher (1861-1947)


   Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
-- Anonymous


   It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be 
unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. 
-- G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)


   Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of
body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they
can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than
circumstances drive them to do.
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)


   Without life, Biology itself would be impossible.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign.
-- Anatole France


   Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share, 
and sought advantage over no one. 
-- Robert Brault


   The further one grows spiritually, the more and more people one loves
and the fewer and fewer people one likes. 
-- Gale D. Webbe, clergyman and author (1909-2000)


   Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old
age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce
this period to a minimum.
-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )


   There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped
three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked 
each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no
can opener.
A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's
cell and found it long empty.  The engineer had constructed a can opener from
pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,
and escaped.
The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids
off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall.  She was developing a good
pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising
solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly
against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor:
Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
Proof: assume the opposite...
-- Your Daily Fortune


   One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that
perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious
position.  Then comes the saddening realization that such people
rarely read.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)


   Who to himself is law no law doth need,
offends no law, and is a king indeed.
-- George Chapman


   It takes a certain maturity of mind to accept that nature works as
steadily in rust as in rose petals. 
-- Esther Warner Dendel, writer and artist (1910-2002)


   NSFW:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. 
-- General Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President (1953)


   Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far
surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. Love thy neighbor, and
if it requires that you bend your understanding of the truth, the Truth
will understand.
-- Robert Brault, writer (1938- )


   "Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them."
-- Samuel Palmer (1805-1880)


   The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably
that which must also make you lonely. 
-- Lorraine Hansberry, playwright and painter (1930-1965)


   We are, for the most part, more lonely when we go abroad among men than
when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone,
let him be where he will. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   The sudden sight of me causes panic in the streets. They have yet to
learn - only the savage fears what he does not understand.
-- The Silver Surfer


   "Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons 
for it afterwards."
-- Soren F. Petersen


   "Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense."
-- Leo Rosten


   Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
-- Niklaus Emil Wirth, Swiss computer scientist (b. 1934)


   Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for
machines to execute.
-- Harold Abelson, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs


   Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about
telescopes.
-- Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (1930-2002)


   Testing can show the presence of errors, but not their absence. 
-- Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (1930-2002)


   For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at
the results of this evening's experiments.  Astonished at the wonderful
power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous
and bad music may be put on record forever.
-- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888


   Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth
without destroying his roots. 
-- Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )


   A child, like your stomach, doesn't need all you can afford to give
it.
-- Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )


   It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered
and allayed by some mixture of sorrow. 
-- Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)


   We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who
don't. 
-- Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )


   A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. 
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)


   NSFW:
Howard Stern (to Jay Thomas): What's cheating to you?
Artie Lange: When you **** a chick twice.
-- Howard Stern Show, 2006-04-19


   What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no
longer believe you.
-- Nietzsche


   NSFW:
Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent
on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be
justified and established. 
-- Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)


   Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.
-- Thomas Szasz


   Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
-- Alexander Pope


   Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they
love truth. 
-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)


   The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind
about nothing - to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
-- John Keats, poet (1795-1821)


   Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. 
-- Suzanne Necker, author (1739-1794)


   QOTD:
"Lack of planning on your part doesn't consitute an emergency
on my part."
-- Your Daily Fortune


   Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is
the beginning of wisdom. 
-- Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923- )


   A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able
to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned
that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who
walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life,
knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us
need both love and charity. 
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)


   The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of
the belief ... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are
contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. 
-- Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)


   The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but
it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth. 
-- Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)


   The more intelligent and cultured a man is, the more subtly he can
humbug himself. 
-- Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)


   The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to
change; the realist adjusts the sails. 
-- William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)


   Some people change when they see the light, others when they feel the
heat.
-- Caroline Schoeder


   People change and forget to tell each other. 
-- Lillian Hellman, playwright (20 Jun 1905-1984)


   For every ten people who are clipping at the branches of evil, you're
lucky to find one who's hacking at the roots. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and
another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which
may be true. 
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)


   The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) [Beyond Good and Evil, 1886]


   People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a
hunt. 
-- Otto von Bismarck, statesman (1815-1898)


   As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his
way. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax. 
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)


   Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft and the only one
that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. 
-- Wernher von Braun, rocket engineer (1912-1977)


   Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of
life, and the artistic expression thereof. 
-- Stephen Leacock, economist and humorist (1869-1944)


   I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to
scorn human actions, but to understand. 
-- Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (1632-1677)


   NSFW:
Mandelbaum: But what can I do?  I only have two hands!  My God.  PLEASE
God... help me find a piece of string and a shoe that fits!
Vladek:     But here God didn't come.  We were all on our own.
-- __Maus II, A Survivor's Tale__ by Art Spiegelman


   Art:        Yes.  Life always takes the side of life, and somehow the
victims are blamed.  But it wasn't the BEST people who
survived, nor did the best ones die.  It was RANDOM!
-- __Maus II, A Survivor's Tale__ by Art Spiegelman


   Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it. 
-- Henry Thomas Buckle, historian (1821-1862)


   A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that
good may come of it. 
-- William Penn, Quaker, founder of Pennsylvania (1644-1718)


   Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in
the game. 
-- Paul Rodriguez


   NSFW:
"Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is
inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears
it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God
is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be
given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then
you can find God in a lump of coal."
-- Steven Weinberg, physicist, _Dreams of a Final Theory_


   Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to
feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not
interest them. 
-- T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965)


   NSFW:
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I
realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked
Him to forgive me.
-- Emo Philips


   NSFW:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and
willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then
why call him God?
-- Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)


   You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based
on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe.
-- Carl Sagan


   "We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't
stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected."
-- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, 1988


   No thinking - that comes later.
You must write your first draft with your heart.
You rewrite with your head.
The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!
-- Mike Rich, _Finding Forrester_


   I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It
is us. 
-- Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)


   We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves. 
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)


   "Hell is other people."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre


   There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to
the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it
fosters humor. 
-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)


   My greatest skill has been to want but little. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value
of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. 
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems
have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects,
those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are
the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers.  Consider Unix,
APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them
with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.
-- Fred Brooks


   Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength. 
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)


   NSFW:
A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart that looks at her watch.
-- James Andrew Beard, American Chef and Food Writer (1903 - 1985)


   You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
-- Dean Martin


   Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. 
-- Michel De Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of
definition. 
-- Eli Khamarov


   You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who
will never be able to repay you. 
-- John Wooden, sports coach (1910- )


   Let your capital be simplicity and contentment. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to
to hide them. 
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)


   When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
-- Harry Truman


   NSFW:
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are 
hatched. 
-- Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (1850-1893)


   The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and
you are out there. 
-- Yasutani Roshi, Zen master (1885-1973)


   I do not know myself and God forbid that I should.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)


   Q:      How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job?
A:      Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   NSFW:
Beat your son every day; you may not know why, but he will.
-- Anonymous


   The hardest-learned lesson: that people have only their kind of love to
give, not our kind. 
-- Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author (1913-1983)


   "Well, I shall now tell you something more. With even a thousand
(explanations), one that has a bad understanding succeeds not in
acquiring knowledge. One, however, that is endued with intelligence
succeeds in attaining happiness, through only a fourth share (of
explanations)." 
-- The Mahabharata Book 14: Aswamedha Parva, Book L


   NSFW:
What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much
as what language he shall speak. 
-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)


   A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
-- Jean de La Fontaine, French Poet (1621 - 1695)


   Action precedes motivation, not the other way around.  Instead of
waiting for inspiration to act on your goals, you need to take action
first and inspiration will follow.  Once you initiate an action - the
smallest of actions - you pick up momentum.
-- Hinda Dubin, Professor of Psychiatry


   The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my
measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old
measurements and expect me to fit them. 
-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)


   "I wish it would end already! This torment; this is hell. I try to
escape from these thoughts of the next day, but they keep haunting me
like nagging flies. If only I could say, it's over, you only die once...
but I can't, because despite all these atrocities, I want to live, and
wait for the following day." 
-- Rutka Laskier, 1943


   "You would probably do just as well to get that plot business out of
your head and start simply with a character or anything that you can
make come alive. Wouldn't it be better for you to discover a meaning in
what you write rather than to impose one? Nothing you write will lack
meaning because the meaning is in you."
-- Flannery O'Connor, in a letter to Elizabeth "Betty" Hester (1925 - 1964)


   The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and
therefore never scrutinize or question.
-- Stephen Jay Gould


   NSFW:
God can't have any moral authority unless He really exists... Religion,
like science, starts with assumptions or conclusions about reality. 
-- Phillip Johnson, creationist


   Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination
with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival.
-- Stephen Jay Gould


   We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to
complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that
yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own
necessary construction.
-- Stephen Jay Gould


   When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes,
the seeds of political manipulation are sown.
-- Stephen Jay Gould


   No good deed goes unpunished.
-- Clare Booth Luce, in H. Faber, The Book of Laws, 1980


   Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it
should end there.
-- Clare Booth Luce


   Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the
frictions of social contacts.
-- Clare Booth Luce


   There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are
one thing, while methods and tactics are another. 
-- Emma Goldman, social activist (1869-1940)


   Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you
cannot save the whole of mankind, you have failed. 
-- Jan de Hartog, playwright and novelist (1914-2002)


   "Skedaddle.  Time is money.  Actually, time is the non-spatial continuum
in which events occur linearly, usually in the direction of increased
entropy.  But the clowns seem to relate better to the money thing."
-- Dwayne McDuffie (1962 - 2011), Justice League Unlimited (TV Series), "The Once and Future Thing", https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/arts/design/24mcduffie.html


   Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also
internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you
refuse to hate him. 
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)


   It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world would  
occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing 
with the same set of facts. 
-- Bill Vaughan, journalist (1915-1977)


   Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds,
our one duty is to furnish it well. 
-- Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director (1921-2004)


   War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
-- Desiderius Erasmus


   Don't be yourself. Be someone a little nicer. 
-- Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author (1913-1983)


   "All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts..."
-- William Shakespeare, __As You Like It__ (II, vii, 139-143)


   Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? 
-- Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)


   Somewhere along the way, you'd better learn you don't lie to yourself.
Tell it the way it does you the most good; but don't never lie to
yourself. 
-- Calvin Clements, Gunsmoke, __Vengeance, Part 1__ (1967)


   Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not
become a monster.  And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks
into you.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche


   Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and
sometimes, they win. 
-- Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947)


   NSFW:
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
-- Thomas Jefferson


   The first myth of management is that it exists.  The second myth of
management is that success equals skill.
-- Robert Heller


   I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. 
-- Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)


   There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down,
the other is pulling up. 
-- Booker T. Washington, reformer, educator, and author (5 Apr 1856-1915)


   "There are a million things in this universe you can have and there are
a million things you can't have."
-- Capt. James T. Kirk, Star Trek, __Charlie X__ (1966)


   NSFW:
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to
power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary
government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.
-- David Hume


   NSFW:
Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained
through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man
of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
-- Emma Goldman


   NSFW:
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all
others because you were born in it.
-- George Bernard Shaw


   Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that
never were and say, "Why not?"
-- George Bernard Shaw


   NSFW:
A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and
woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
-- George William Curtis


   Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in
England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after
all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is
always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a
democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any
country. 
-- Hermann Goering


   NSFW:
If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it.
-- Norman Thomas


   NSFW:
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear,
or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
-- Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775


   Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its
deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other
countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism,
however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies,
while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants
to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest," but greatness is not
required of a country; only goodness is.
-- Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)


   I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it
exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will
venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported
on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or
some reward.
-- George Washington


   NSFW:
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
-- Samuel Johnson, English Poet (1709 - 1784)


   NSFW:
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
-- Thomas Jefferson quoted by Howard Zinn, American Historian, b.1922


   Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we
have lost in information? 
-- T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)


   The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can
be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
-- Elizabeth Taylor


   If you want something really important to be done you must not merely
satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also. 
-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)


   Science is built with facts as a house is with stones - but a
collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a
house. 
-- Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912)


   Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the
injury that provokes it. 
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)


   I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his
own eyes.  What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks
of himself.  To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery


   NSFW:
A woman's head is always influenced by her heart; but a man's heart by
his head. 
-- Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789-1849)


   "Excellent," said Kamaswami. "And would you write something for me on
this piece of paper?"  He handed him a piece of paper and a pen, and
Siddhartha wrote and returned the paper.
Kamaswami read: "Writing is good, thinking is better. Being smart is
good, being patient is better."
"It is excellent how you're able to write," the merchant praised him.
-- Herman Hesse, __Siddhartha__


   "Yes indeed. And what is it now that you have got to give? What is it
that you've learned, what are you able to do?"
"I can think. I can wait. I can fast."
-- Herman Hesse, __Siddhartha__


   Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is
supposed to be doing at that moment. 
-- Robert Benchley


   The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
-- Mark Twain


   The first requisite for immortality is death.
-- Stanislaw Lem


   If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must
take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own
and depart. 
-- Socrates (469-399 B.C.)


   Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always
remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless
you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
-- Richard Milhous Nixon (1913 - 1994), Staff Farewell Speech, August 9, 1974


   Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually
has a son who thinks he's wrong. 
-- Charles Wadsworth


   NSFW:
Woman  inspires  us  to  great  things, and prevents us from achieving
them. 
-- Alexandre (the Younger) Dumas (1824 - 1895)


   To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less
important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. 
-- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)


   It seems to me that our three basic needs for food and security and love
are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of 
one without the others. 
-- M.F.K. (Mary Frances Kennedy) Fisher, writer (1908-1992)


   To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand is like picking unripe
fruit when the ripe fruit is there. 
-- Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 1st century BCE or 6th century CE)


   Peace of mind is the best, health is most important, and to live happily
and to give is much greater than to get.
-- Dharmendra, on B News 2007-09-09


   It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths
before their times. 
-- Thomas Brackett Reed, politician (1839-1902)


   It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian Novelist


   Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing
away from it all that is not gold. 
-- Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)


   There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and
truth. 
-- Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (9 Sep 1828-1910)


   "Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without
prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with
their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not
common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent,
discussion is apt to become worse than useless."
-- Leo Tolstoy, __War and Peace__ (1862)


   Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
-- Groucho Marx (unconfirmed attribution)


   NSFW:
There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and
family.  But he can't make a living for them *and* his government, too,
the way his government is living.  What the government has got to do is
live as cheap as the people.
-- The Best of Will Rogers


   Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are
invented nonsense. 
-- Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (1907-1988)


   Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance. 
-- Everett Dean Martin, columnist, preacher, and philosopher (1880-1941)


   Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our
own minds. 
-- Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)


   If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man
as it is, infinite. 
-- William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)


   Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all
right out, just as they are - chaff and grain together - certain that
a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and
with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. 
-- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, poet and novelist (26 Apr 1826-1887) 
(often mis-attributed to George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880))


   "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".
-- Philip K. Dick


   The Tao is like a glob pattern:
used but never used up.
It is like the extern void:
filled with infinite possibilities.
It is masked but always present.
I don't know who built it.
It came before the first kernel.
-- Jeffrey Sorensen (with apologies to Stephen Mitchell and Lao Tzu)


   The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, 
at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of 
contradictions - none more so than the most capable. 
-- Theodore Dreiser, author (1871-1945)


   "I only gave promises to my mom when I was a small boy" 
-- Response from Russian President Vladimir Putin when prodded by Iranian reporters to promise a quick launch for the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran on 2007-10-16


   What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the
virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other
warm. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   You will pay for your sins.  If you have already paid, please disregard
this message.
-- Your Daily Fortune


   The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic,
and to some extent even antibiotic - in short, the closest thing to a
genuine panacea - known to medical science is work. 
-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)


   To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
-- Colette, author (1873-1954)


   Every man's memory is his private literature. 
-- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)


   To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none. 
-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)


   I used to think I was a child; now I think I am an adult - not because
I no longer do childish things, but because those I call adults are no
more mature than I am.
-- Anonymous


   There's nothing remarkable about it.  All one has to do is hit the right
keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- J.S. Bach


   The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished 
steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial
brilliancy.
-- Antoine de Rivarol, epigrammatist (1753-1801)


   Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are
convinced beyond doubt that they are right. 
-- Laurens van der Post, explorer, and writer (1906-1996)


   There's a tendency to believe that life ends when you lose your stuff.
But the reality is life is life and we all share it and it goes on. 
-- Ernie Hudson, actor, commenting on his role as a homeless man in __Everything's Jake__ on __The View__ (2007-12-07)


   The ingenuities we practice in order to appear admirable to ourselves
would suffice to invent the telephone twice over on a rainy summer
morning. 
-- Brendan Gill, writer and preservationist (1914-1997)


   How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to
keep it ourselves. 
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)


   Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is
exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only
different kinds of good weather.  
-- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)


   I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite
sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my
gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite. 
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)


   There is nothing but God.
-- Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, Lunch with Bokara, "God is Everywhere and Nowhere: The Hindu Swami and the Buddhist"


   If it happens that the authority of Sacred Scripture is set in
opposition to clear and certain reasoning, this must mean that the
person who interprets Scripture does not understand it correctly. It is
not the meaning of Scripture which is opposed to the truth but the
meaning which he has wanted to give to it. That which is opposed to
Scripture is not what is in Scripture but what he has placed there
himself, believing that this is what Scripture meant.
-- Aurelius Augustinus, Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine), 354-430 CE


   A speech belongs half to the speaker and half to the listener. 
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   NSFW:
I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects
or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely
above it. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   All ideas are already in the brain, just as all statues are in the
marble.
-- Carlo Dossi, author and diplomat (1849-1910)


   The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than
the man who forces them to think. 
-- Malcolm De Chazal, writer and painter (1902-1981)


   What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears. 
-- Alice Walker, author (b. 1944)


   For money you can have everything it is said. No that is not true. You
can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but
not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort;
fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but
not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace.
The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That
cannot be had for money. 
-- Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)


   I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic
insects.  It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you
made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only
work by harnessing, disfiguring or totally destroying the other ninety
percent?
-- Annie Dillard, author (b. 1945)


   Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience,
your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily. 
-- Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)


   NSFW:
"Anyone who hates Hillary Clinton just hates themselves.  There's
nothing hateful about this woman.  Is she a hateful person with hateful 
positions?  Then where is the hate coming from?"
-- Bill Maher, __Real Time with Bill Maher__, 2008-02-01


   unSane: GR and QM make predictions about the world at totally different
scales. You can't use GR gravitation to predict what will happen to a
bunch of subatomic particles and you can't use QM to predict the motion
of a planet... Gravitons offer a possible way of linking the two
theories, since if particles could affect one another by exchanging
gravitons in the same way that they exchange energy and information by
exchanging photons, we could explain GR in terms of QM.
There is no contradiction even then, because GR does not explain *why*
gravity is as it is, only *how* it is as it is. We learn from einstein
that mass curves spacetime, but not how they do it, or indeed what
spacetime is.
em: Now, when one is given a "classical" (non-quantum) theory such as
general relativity, there is a standard procedure for working out the
"semiclassical" physics - this is a sort of first approximation to the
full quantum theory. Applying this procedure to general relativity, one
arrives quickly at the prediction that there should be gravitons. One
thinks of these gravitons as representing fluctuations of the space-time
geometry - the first-order way of visualizing them is just to think of
a little wiggle in the fabric of the universe, which propagates through
space and time. Most physicists today would say that this shouldn't be
thought of as a revision of general relativity, but rather as a sort of
minimal consequence of general relativity and quantum mechanics
together.
-- On trying to reconcile General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM) and the nature of mathematical models in physics vs reality (http://ask.metafilter.com/35201/Gravity-and-relativity)


   andrew cooke: Bell's equality is more about "philosophical problems"
with quantum mechanics than general relativity and there's currently an
attempt to approach quantum mechanics as a kind of derivative of
information theory which, if successful, might "explain" that.
-- On trying to reconcile General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM) and the nature of mathematical models in physics vs reality (http://ask.metafilter.com/35201/Gravity-and-relativity)


   flabdablet (Stephen Thomas): [GR's] assumptions are flawed, but there's
a huge problem space where those flaws make no significant difference...
Spacetime, mass, energy, gravity and the geometrical mathematics that
connect them are all theoretical constructs invented to model certain
observable phenomena. They all go hand in hand, and none of them can be
said to cause any of the others.
flabdablet (Stephen Thomas): Also bear in mind that particles are
abstractions. They're more your collection of numbers and rules than
your tiny little billiard ball.
Physical theories are not for telling us what the world is like; they're
for helping us predict how assorted bits of it will behave. At the kinds
of extreme scales where Newtonian mechanics breaks down (i.e. starts
making incorrect predictions), the world isn't like anything but itself,
and our intuitions about it are misleading as often as not.
The tendency to see the word "particle" and picture a little billiard
ball is what makes it hard for people to understand how light, for
example, can be both a wave and a particle. The way to understand stuff
like that is to remember that in the context of physical theory, a wave
is just a mathematical model with a bunch of numbers attached to it; so
is a particle.
Light itself is what it is. The quantum model we use to predict the
behavior of light is neither a pure wave model nor a pure particle
model, but a more complex model with both kinds of numbers attached.
Gravitons are that kind of thing too. So far, nobody has been able to
point to any part of the real world and say with confidence "that's a
graviton!" so it seems that gravitons are an abstraction in search of
something to abstract; but there are many respectable physicists who
fully expect those map entries to correspond usefully to a bit of
territory any time soon.
-- On trying to reconcile General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM) and the nature of mathematical models in physics vs reality (http://ask.metafilter.com/35201/Gravity-and-relativity)


   Physical theories are not for telling us what the world is like; they're
for helping us predict how assorted bits of it will behave. At the kinds
of extreme scales where Newtonian mechanics breaks down (i.e. starts
making incorrect predictions), the world isn't like anything but itself,
and our intuitions about it are misleading as often as not.
The tendency to see the word "particle" and picture a little billiard
ball is what makes it hard for people to understand how light, for
example, can be both a wave and a particle. The way to understand stuff
like that is to remember that in the context of physical theory, a wave
is just a mathematical model with a bunch of numbers attached to it; so
is a particle.
Light itself is what it is. The quantum model we use to predict the
behavior of light is neither a pure wave model nor a pure particle
model, but a more complex model with both kinds of numbers attached.
-- flabdablet (Stephen Thomas), On trying to reconcile General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM)


   grahamwell: I remember my tutor explaining that Physics does not attemt (sic)
to discover how the world works, rather it is a long (and rather boring)
apprenticeship to be able to accurately predict how it will behave.
-- On trying to reconcile General Relativity (GR) with Quantum Mechanics (QM) and the nature of mathematical models in physics vs reality (http://ask.metafilter.com/35201/Gravity-and-relativity)


   The formula F = ma (or F = dp/dt) is, for various reasons, very subtle.
First, it's important to realize that we never measure forces. There's
no such thing as a 'force-o-meter'. This is not the case for
acceleration (or velocity, or position) - we have rulers and stopwatches
to measure these things.
There may be objections to this - surely a spring measures force? Or a
strain gauge? Or a pressure gauge? None of those things really do, they
rely on constitutive (material properties) relationships which relate a
force (dynamic quantity) to a displacement (kinematic quantity).
F=ma conceals this important point - it sets equal a *kinematic*
quantity (acceleration), with a *dynamic* quantity (force). We do not
ultimately know what causes a force. We have lots of models, to be sure,
in as much detail and complexity as you can stomach. But in the end, we
still have no force-o-meter. 
If you like, you may think of 'mass' as being a constant of
proportionality between an applied force (whatever the origin of said
force) and a resultant motion - but that has limits as well (massless
particles). Consequently, it may be helpful to spend time temporarily
expunging 'force' from your mental concepts and instead think in terms
of momentum and energy.
-- Andy Resnick, "How Can Things Move?" http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=219929


   As supplement, Greenwood says this in Principles of Dynamics:
"The concept of force as a fundamental quantity in the study of
mechanics has been criticized by various scientists and philosophers of
science from shortly after Newton's enunciation of the laws of motion
until the present time. Briefly, the idea of a force, and a field force
in particular [Greenwood defines field forces as those involved with
action at a distance], was considered to be an intellectual construction
which has no real existence. It is merely another name for the product
of mass and acceleration which occurs in the mathematics of solving a
problem. Furthermore, the idea of force as a cause of motion should be
discarded since the assumed cause and effect relationships cannot be
proved."
-- Mapes, "How Can Things Move?" http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=219929


   With each land, each boundary, I cross, I strip away another illusion.  I
sense death will be the last.
-- Alexander, on the Hindu Kush mountains to Ptolemy, perhaps in reference to the illusion of death, Oliver Stone's __Alexander__


   I have lived long enough now to question when so many others 
invest such emotion in their disrespect for you.
-- Aristotle to Alexander, Oliver Stone's __Alexander__


   Fear not, you are a great man.  
What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world?  
All that matters is what you've done.
-- Whisperings to Alexander on his deathbed as he wrestles with his guilt, the myths of the gods, and his life, Oliver Stone's __Alexander__


   "Yunhi chala chal raahi
Kitni haseen hai ye duniya
Bhool saare jhamele, dekh phoolon ke mele
Badi rangeen hai yeh duniya 
...
Dekhun jidhar bhi in raahon mein
Rang pighalte hain nigaahon mein
Thhandi hawa hai, thhandi chhaaon hai
Duur woh jaane kiska gaaon hai 
...
Har sapna sach lage, jo prem agan jale
Jo raah tu chale apne mann ki
Har pal ki seep se, moti hi tu chune
Jo tu sadaa sune apne mann ki 
...
Jeevan mein preet hai, honton pe geet hai
Bas yehi jeet hai, sun le raahi
Tu jis disha bhi jaa, tu pyaar hi loota
Tu deep hi jala, sun le raahi 
...
Kaun ye mujhko pukaare
Nadiya pahaad jheel aur jharne, jangal aur waadi
In mein hai kiske ishaare"
[Keep going like this, oh traveler
How beautiful is this world
Forget all the turmoils and complications, look at the festival of flowers
This world is so very colourful
...
Whereever I look along these paths
Colours melt in my sights
The wind is cool, the shade is cool
Who knows whose village that is in the distance
...
Every dream seems true, when the fire of love burns
If you walk the path of your heart
In the shell of every moment, you'll pick only pearls
If you always listen to your heart
...
Love is in your life, a song is upon your lips
Only this is victory, listen oh traveler
Whichever place you go, spread only love
Only alight lamps, listen oh traveler
...
Who is calling out to me?
River mountain stream and lake, forest and valley
Whose signs are in these?]
-- Yun Hi Chala Chal Rahi, lyrics by Javed Akhtar in __Swades__


   I, for one, am looking forward to absorbing myself in antiquity because 
I'm so deeply tired of the modern world and all the troubles which
torment it.
-- Titus Livius (Livy), Roman Historian, 59 BCE - 17 CE


   Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the
over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so
spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour
of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a
struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt.
Happiness is never grand.
-- Aldous Leonard Huxley, English writer (1894-1963)


   NSFW:
Believing in religion is fine; believing in God is the crazy bit.
-- Christopher Hitchens, Real Time with Bill Maher, 2008-02-29


   Why would they go for three days in the snow to listen to this man
[Jonathan Edwards] to preach when what he had was, in effect, their
eventual damnation?  People like fear.  We place ourselves in fearful
situations.  Fear and terror are primary human emotions.
-- Reverend Ed Ingebretsen, Professor of English, Georgetown University, __Hell: The Devil's Domain__


   NSFW:
Racism is a bitch because it's hard enough being a human being.  It is
really fucking hard enough just to be that.
-- Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip (1982)


   NSFW:
Joy Behar: The conclusion we've come to is everybody's a whore, a little
bit.  Everybody whore's themselves a little bit.  Every time you say Yes
when you want to say No, you're whoring yourself.
Whoopi Goldberg: Depends on what you think whoring is.  What's whoring
to one person is not whoring to another.  That's the bottom line.
Joy Behar: That's the point.
-- __The View__ (2008-03-13)


   The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living
with power to endanger the public liberty. 
-- John Adams, 2nd US president (30 Oct 1735-1826)


   Jefferson: You are too modest, sir.
Adams: You are the first to find me so, sir.  No, I am not, by nature, a
humble man but circumstances sometimes require a change of habits.
-- John Adams, as quoted in HBO's __John Adams__ ("Independence", Episode 2) 2008


   What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out,
which is the exact opposite. 
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)


   We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we
become disguised to ourselves. 
-- Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)


   Those founders [of the United States of America] were not perfect
people; they were not gods.  They were human beings.  But we mustn't
just see them as human beings because they were imperfect.  They are
also human beings because they could achieve great things.  They could
have dreams of what they hoped to achieve.
-- David G. McCullough, __Making John Adams__


   Year  Name                              James Bond      Book
----  --------------------------------  --------------  ----
50's  James Bond TV Series              Barry Nelson
1962  Dr. No                            Sean Connery    1958
1963  From Russia With Love             Sean Connery    1957
1964  Goldfinger                        Sean Connery    1959
1965  Thunderball                       Sean Connery    1961
1967* Casino Royale                     David Niven     1954
1967  You Only Live Twice               Sean Connery    1964
1969  On Her Majesty's Secret Service   George Lazenby  1963
1971  Diamonds Are Forever              Sean Connery    1956
1973  Live And Let Die                  Roger Moore     1955
1974  The Man With The Golden Gun       Roger Moore     1965
1977  The Spy Who Loved Me              Roger Moore     1962 (novelette)
1979  Moonraker                         Roger Moore     1955
1981  For Your Eyes Only                Roger Moore     1960 (novelette)
1983  Octopussy                         Roger Moore     1965
1983* Never Say Never Again             Sean Connery
1985  A View To A Kill                  Roger Moore     1960 (novelette)
1987  The Living Daylights              Timothy Dalton  1965 (novelette)
* -- Not official EON/Broccoli productions


   Eminent posts make great men greater, and little men less. 
-- Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)


   All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else
they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be
possible. 
-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)


   The best way to be more free is to grant more freedom to others. 
-- Carlo Dossi, author and diplomat (1849-1910)


   It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving
to life and wealth and power. 
-- Buddha (c. 563-483 BCE)


   Society is composed of two great classes: those who have more dinners
than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.
-- Sebastien-Roch-Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)


   The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -
and hence clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. 
-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956), https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion,
learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a
bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
-- Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)


   A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a
superstition. 
-- Jose Bergamin, author (1895-1983)


   We are all equal before the law, but not before those appointed to apply
it. 
-- Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)


   Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or
throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if
you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words. 
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)


   When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by
asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't
know the answer either.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler


   It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them
afterwards. 
-- Baltasar Gracian, philosopher and writer (1601-1658)


   I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these
Calculating Engines.  I have also declined several offers of great personal
advantage to myself.  But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages
for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after
expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of
England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced,
I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer
of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men
who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations...  
If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere
triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution
of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification
might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert
that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express
an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man
distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of
such machinery impracticable...
And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that
exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement,
which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the 
application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse
calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country.
In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not
be economized by the aid of machinery.
-- Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher


   Hawking compared people who don't want to spend money on human space
exploration to those who opposed the journey of Christopher Columbus in
1492.
"The discovery of the New World made a profound difference to the old.
Just think we wouldn't have had a Big Mac or KFC."
-- Stephen Hawking, http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/22/hawking-intelligent-alien.html


   Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well-ordered mind
than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his
own company. 
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)


   Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East - to
know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those
days did not build them - who were above such trifling. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
-- Polonius in __Hamlet__ by William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)


   There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the
unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters
humor. 
-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)


   NSFW:
It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his
companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only
ambition is to obey. 
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)


   [People say to me,] "Carlos, there is a right and there is a wrong."...
No, there is not.  There is a just and there is an unjust. What you
justify is what you think is right; what you can't, you think is wrong.
But it is a matter of perspective.  There is a huge world out there.
-- Carlos Mencia (Ned Arnel Mencia), comedian, writer, and actor (1967 - )


   My greatest skill has been to want but little. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   "I may no more understand why he left us when he did than why he
survived when he did."
-- Lt. Col. Evan Renz, Surgeon to Marine Sgt. Merlin German, after his passing from routine surgery to add skin under his lower lip (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080525/ap_on_re_us/memorial_day__miracle__marine)


   Corny as it sounds, the best revenge is to stay kind, succeed, and
enjoy your life.
-- Sean Kernan, writing about MMA champion George St. Pierre's experience with a bully, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/story/9x-ufc-champion-bumps-into-his-childhood-bully-two-decades-later-195802425.html


   It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost
our way. 
-- Rollo May, psychologist (1909-1994)


   Baker: I thought you were dead.
His father: Not completely... are we ever?
-- Stephen Joshua Sondheim, American composer and lyricist, (b. 1930) in __Into the Woods__


   Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. 
-- Madame de Stael, writer (1766-1817)


   One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and
intelligence are so rarely found in the same person. 
-- William Feather, author, editor, and publisher (1889-1981)


   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, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)


   People like to imagine that because all our mechanical equipment moves
so much faster, that we are thinking faster, too. 
-- Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)


   "I recently went to the National Institute of Standards and Technology
in Boulder," says Lloyd. (NIST is the government lab that houses the
atomic clock that standardizes time for the nation.) "I said something
like, 'Your clocks measure time very accurately.' They told me, 'Our
clocks do not measure time.' I thought, 'Wow, that's very humble of
these guys.' But they said, 'No, time is defined to be what our clocks
measure.' Which is true. They define the time standards for the globe:
Time is defined by the number of clicks of their clocks.
-- Seth Lloyd, Quantum Mechanical Engineer at MIT, on the "Problem of Time" (http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time)


   We never really see time, he says. We see only clocks. If you say this
object moves, what you really mean is that this object is here when the
hand of your clock is here, and so on. We say we measure time with
clocks, but we see only the hands of the clocks, not time itself. And
the hands of a clock are a physical variable like any other. So in a
sense we cheat because what we really observe are physical variables as
a function of other physical variables, but we represent that as if
everything is evolving in time. 
What happens with the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is that we have to stop
playing this game. Instead of introducing this fictitious variable time,
which itself is not observable, we should just describe how the variables
are related to one another. The question is, 'Is time a fundamental
property of reality or just the macroscopic appearance of things?' I
would say it's only a macroscopic effect. It's something that emerges
only for big things.
-- Carlo Rovelli, Theoretical Physicist, on the "Problem of Time" (http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time)


   It was our own moral failure and not any accident of chance, that, while
preserving the appearance of the Republic, we lost its reality. 
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)


   It is also a victory to know when to retreat. 
-- Erno Paasilinna, essayist and journalist (1935-2000)


   A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value 
of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. 
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)


   It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to 
restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
-- Andre Gide, author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951)


   Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove
all doubt. 
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president (1809-1865)


   What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No
martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper
is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is
only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily
- whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law,
by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of
violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of
life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and
his children, the whole nation is degraded.
-- Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925 - 1968) to the Cleveland City Club, Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1968


   For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and 
should be deemed as their most serious actions. 
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness,
consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of
eternal peace. 
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)


   To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the
captain, and a positive crime in the statesman. 
-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)


   The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only
common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal
after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, biologist, author (1941-2002)


   Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of
definition. 
-- Eli Khamarov


   Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a
lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue. 
-- Robert Wright, author and journalist (b. 1957)


   If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find
it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it
was he, because it was I. 
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month  
before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him. 
-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956), https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   NSFW:
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion. 
-- Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917-2008)


   We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we
preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but
seldom preach. 
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)


   There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and
after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)


   One should count each day a separate life. 
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)


   Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged: It is so. It is
not so. It is so. It is not so. 
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)


   I am a part of all that I have met. 
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)


   NSFW:
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it
seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the
fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving
after rational knowledge.
- Albert Einstein


   There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that
I am prepared to kill for. 
-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)


   It's not the genius who is 100 years ahead of his time but average man
who is 100 years behind it. 
-- Robert Musil, novelist (1880-1942)


   There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But
it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We
used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them
economical numbers. 
-- Richard P. Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)


   Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to
to hide them. 
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)


   NSFW:
"Men want their women in a good mood; they want them quiet; and they
want you to be willing to lick them."
-- Monique Marvez, Latin Divas of Comedy, 2007.


   NSFW:
Men like their love kinesthetic.  Women like their love audio-visual.
We need to see it, we need that re-assurance.  We need evidence, we need
to know.  We need something when you're not home to say, "He loves me".
And, more importantly, we need evidence to take to the coven and show
the other witches.  That's the important part.
-- Monique Marvez, Latin Divas of Comedy, 2007.


   The only gift is giving to the poor; 
All else is exchange.
-- Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE)


   I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe
as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.
We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that
they might some day force theirs on us. 
-- Mario Cuomo, 52nd Governor of New York (b. 1932)


   Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism
in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with
the ignorance of the community.
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   NSFW:
I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation
if he didn't. 
-- Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)


   "Luck equals hard work plus luck."
-- William Chiriguayo


   On Proposition 8 in California (November 2008 election):  It basically
allows 50% of same sex couples to be just as miserable as their
traditional couple counterparts.
-- Marco Chiriguayo


   When in doubt look to nature and see what she has to say about your
petty little issues.
-- Marco Chiriguayo, 2012-11-20


   Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is
each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and
each man as he really is. 
-- William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)


   NSFW:
The doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to
a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind. 
-- Herbert J. Muller, educator, historian, and author (1905-1980)


   There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they
like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and
kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham. 
-- Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878)


   If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to
your enemies. 
-- Moshe Dayan, military leader and politician (1915-1981)


   A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. 
-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)


   A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage. 
-- Marvin Kitman, author and media critic (b. 1929)


   What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of
debt, and has a clear conscience? 
-- Adam Smith, economist (1723-1790)


   NSFW:
Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were
revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part,
and would be as perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after
ten thousand years of practice. There has never been a religion which
fulfills those conditions. 
-- Robert Blatchford, author (1851-1943)


   War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector
enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
-- John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)


   You're asking me how I healed from all of this?  I'm not healed from all
that.  I've learned how to cope with it.  I've learned how to live and
be grateful for what I have and that I'm alive.  But you don't heal from that.
-- Ron Holiday, exotic-cat entertainer in the documentary on his life, __Cat Dancers__ (2008)


   Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only
kindness can do that. 
-- Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, preacher, journalist, and activist (1802-1861)


   Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow
for ages, not hurt anyone. 
-- Czeslaw Milosz, poet and novelist (1911-2004)


   NSFW:
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of
work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to
do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting
one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
-- Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)


   There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks
he is sane. I know I am mad. 
-- Salvador Dali, painter (1904-1989)


   What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the
homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of
totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? 
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)


   The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new
landscapes but in having new eyes. 
-- Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)


   Memories are interpreted like dreams. 
-- Leo Longanesi, journalist and editor (1905-1957)


   Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and
destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest
but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of
one beautiful form into another. 
-- John Muir, Naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)


   There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and
others. 
-- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)


   Their worst misfortune was his birth... their next worst his death.
-- Sir Winston Churchill quoted in __Lenin and the Downfall of Tsarist Russia__ (1966)


   And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 
-- William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)


   The pebbles forgive me, 
the trees forgive me.
-- The Moldy Peaches, __Anyone else but you__


   Myth: we have to save the earth. Frankly, the earth doesn't need to be
saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The
planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions
upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99
percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained.
Saving the environment is really about saving our environment - making
it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If
more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably
see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so.
-- Robert M. Lilienfeld, management consultant and author (b. 1953) and William L. Rathje, archaeologist and author (b. 1945)


   I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a
man is a member of the human race. That's bad enough for me. 
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910


   The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it
is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. 
-- Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)


   I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)


   Remembering is always about some degree of forgetting.
-- David Blight, American Historian, in regards to the historical memory of  Lincoln's racial views in  __Looking For Lincoln__


   Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. 
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and author (1884-1962)


   When there are two conflicting versions of the story, the wise course
is to believe the one in which people appear at their worst.
-- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"


   Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask,
and he will tell you the truth. 
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I
may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. 
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist (1875-1926)


   Men have slow reflexes. In general, it takes several generations later
for them to understand. 
-- Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)


   It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you
know for sure that just ain't so.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   NSFW:
Faith is believing what you know ain't so. 
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   In California the "plain language" pattern jury instructions are:
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you with an 
abiding conviction that the charge is true. The evidence need not 
eliminate all possible doubt because everything in life is open to 
some possible or imaginary doubt.
-- Instructions from Judge Harold I. Cherness, LA Superior Court, on 2009-01-21


   I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has
seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. 
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)


   Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve
you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.
-- G.B. Shaw


   We are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the
virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among
whom we live. 
-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)


   In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for
every one we lose. 
-- Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)


   A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too 
near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze. 
-- Diogenes, philosopher (c412-323 BCE)


   How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success. 
-- Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)


   NSFW:
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. 
-- John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)


   Oh, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to
use it like a giant. 
-- William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)


   Lack of skill dictates economy of style.
-- Joey Ramone


   The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat.
-- A. Rosenblueth, Philosophy of Science, 1945


   Under capitalism, man exploits man.  Under communism, it's just the opposite.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith


   To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all
sects but your own; to be moral, all pretences but your own. 
-- Lionel Strachey, writer and translator (1864-1927)


   NSFW:
Not thinking critically, I assumed that the "successful" prayers were
proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there
was something wrong with me. 
-- Dan Barker, former preacher, musician (b. 1949)


   University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so
small.
-- Henry Kissinger


   "A little learning is a dangerous thing."
-- Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 - 30 May 1744), __Essay on Criticism__, part ii, line 15.


   I am pleased to see that we have differences.  May we together become
greater than the sum of both of us.
-- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4


   A guy once told me, "Do not have any attachments, do not have anything in
life that you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you
can feel the heat around the corner."
-- "Neil McCauley" in __Heat__, written and directed by Michael Mann


   Whoe'er excels in what we prize 
Appears a hero in our eyes. 
-- Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)


   "I see as much misery from those who seek to justify theirselves (sic)
as from those who set out to cause harm." 
-- David Milch and Malcolm MacRury writing for "Doc Cochran", Season 1, episode 2, __Deadwood__, in reference to a posse going out to find the killers of a family


   We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to
develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers
Manual.
-- Andrew Hume, Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Labs and USENIX Board of Directors


   Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much
extinguishes it. 
-- Hannah More, writer (1745-1833)


   I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some day
die, which is not so.
-- Stephen Leacock, Canadian writer and economist (1869-1944)


   I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I
have of it.
-- Stephen Leacock, Canadian writer and economist (1869-1944)


   "Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No
one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad; why we
fought, or how we died. No, all that matters is that two stood against
many. That's what's important. Valour pleases you, Crom, so grant me one
request: grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then the hell with
you!" 
-- Conan, __Conan The Barbarian__ (1982)


   Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness. 
-- Simone Weil, philosopher, mystic, activist (1909-1943)


   An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. 
-- Bonnie Friedman, author (b. 1958)


   "I told her not to worry about your moods, that you generate those
yourself and then you find your excuse for having 'em." 
-- David Milch and Ricky Jay writing for "Doc Cochran", Season 1, episode 11, __Deadwood__, in reference to Al Swearengen's moods


   I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the
noblest of causes. 
-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)


   In other countries, poverty is a misfortune - with us, it is a crime.
-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, writer (1803-1873)


   America has been called a melting pot, but it seems better to call it a
mosaic, for in it each nation, people or race which has come to its
shores has been privileged to keep its individuality, contributing at
the same time its share to the unified pattern of a new nation. 
-- King Baudouin of Belgium (1930-1993)


   Race isn't even real. In the Taxonomic Hierarchy of Biological
Classification, animals in a branch ALWAYS have more in common with
animals in the same branch than they do with animals in any other
branch. But when one tries to create branches by race, it's easy to
identify a human who has more DNA in common with another human
belonging in one branch than in their own branch; i.e. you can find a
white person who is more similar to a black person than they are to a
particular white person. But you'll never find a dog who is more like
a cat rather than being more like every other dog. That is to say,
branching by race breaks the definition of what it means to branch on
the DNA level.
Precisely - when someone needs a transplant, the race of the donor
does not affect whether it matches. 
-- Dan20055 and Michelle7, posters in Yahoo forums, https://www.yahoo.com/sports/angels-rookie-chase-silseth-exits-game-after-collapsing-from-throw-to-head-012033088.html and https://www.openweb.com/share/2UZMV3GiwPLVBT6eiglaW7nj6YM


   It never occurred to me that Jimmy could die. He always seemed more
spirit than human. It's good to have his recordings to keep him around
and not have to think about him being gone.
-- @Don39678, posters in Yahoo forums on the passing of Jimmy Buffett, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jimmy-buffett-margaritaville-singer-dies-072354351.html https://www.openweb.com/share/2UqdTrqutaZtcz5iHLiQWv017zy


   When Jimmy was in the world, I felt safe. Even though I have Tom, it
will be a whole new thing for me to be without my brother Jimmy.
-- Laurie Buffett McGuane, sister of Jimmy Buffett on his passing, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jimmy-buffetts-sister-reveals-faced-012000494.html


   Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and
buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the
water, eat fish, and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter
for exactly the same reasons. 
-- Douglas Adams, writer, dramatist, and musician (1952-2001)


   Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. 
-- Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (1857-1938)


   The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. 
-- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)


   The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)


   Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)


   It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my
reasons for them. 
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the
grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no
yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at
peace. 
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   NSFW:
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly
teaches me to suspect that my own is also. 
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   NSFW:
"So, including last night, that's three fuckin' damage incidents that
didn't kill you. Pain and damage don't end the world, or despair, or
fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you
got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
-- David Milch and Jody Worth writing for "Al Swearengen", Season 2, episode 19, __Deadwood__


   "So I didn't really enjoy Oxford that much and I found it a bit
daunting, I think.  You know, I sort of liked saying 'Hello" to people,
really, and you'd say 'Hello' to somebody and they'd just rush past. And
it was also daunting because you thought, 'Oxford! Oxford! My God,
everybody's going to be so bright!  They're going to be so much cleverer
than me!' And then you gradually realize it's all an illusion; that
nobody's cleverer than anybody else, really."
-- Terry Jones on __Monty Python: Almost the Truth, The Not So Interesting Beginnings__, 2009


   You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. 
-- Khalil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)


   The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge
faster than society gathers wisdom. 
-- Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)


   Frequently, when I am at work on a science fiction novel [...] I find
myself heartily sick of it and unable to write another word. But I
don't let that drive me crazy. I don't stare at blank sheets of paper. I
don't spend days and nights cudgeling a head that is empty of ideas.
Instead, I simply leave the novel and go on to any of the dozen other
projects that are on tap. I write an editorial, or an essay, or a
short story, or work on one of my nonfiction books. By the time I've
grown tired of these things, my mind has been able to do its proper
work and fill up again. I return to my novel and find myself able to
write easily once more.
-- Isaac Asimov, writer and professor of biochemistry, (1920 - 1992) in David B. Clear's __Why You Should Work on a Million Drafts at Once__, https://writingcooperative.com/why-you-should-work-on-a-million-drafts-at-once-d88b687e222b


   The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who
wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty
perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors.
-- Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)


   Crowds are only powerful for destruction.  Their rule is always
tantamount to a barbarian phase.  A civilization involves fixed rules,
discipline, a passing from the instinctive to the rational state,
forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture - all of them
conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown
themselves incapable of realizing.
-- Gustave Le Bon, __The Crowd__, 1895


   We must assume as a theoretically fixed premise of popular government
that normally men as members of a public will not be well informed,
continuously interested, nonpartisan, creative or executive.  We must
assume that a public is inexpert in its curiosity, intermittent, that it
discerns only gross distinctions, is slow to be aroused and quickly diverted.
-- Walter Lippman, __The Phantom Public__, 1925


   The more difficult part of being a 68-year-old child is that the world
isn't as surprising as when you're six or seven years old.  As you get
older, the predictability is just more predictable.  So that's the hard
part, trying to keep yourself excited about life because it's so easy to
just get bored with life and die.  But somehow I've managed to keep a
bit of interest in it. 
-- Terry Gilliam on __Monty Python: Almost the Truth, Finally!  The Last Episode (Ever) (For Now...)__, 2009


   Leadership is information, popular appeal is indoctrination.
-- Cora Du Bois, Anthropologist, Meeting on Public Education, November 7, 1947, Federation of American Scientists, Box 49


   We forget quicker if the need greater.
-- Transcript on Public Education, October 21, 1947, Federation of American Scientists, Box 49


   Don't surrender your loneliness 
So quickly. 
Let it cut more deeply.
Let it ferment and season you 
As few human 
Or even divine ingredients can. 
-- Hafez, poet (1315-1390)


   The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the
speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather
the care given to the welfare of all the people. 
-- Helen Adams Keller, lecturer and author (1880-1968)


   "I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a
musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and
harmonies."  
-- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)


   NSFW:
The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the
enemies of God. 
-- Andrew Dickson White, diplomat, historian, and educator (1832-1918)


   NSFW:
"Every day takes figuring out all over again how to fucking live." 
-- David Milch and Ted Mann writing for "Calamity Jane", Season 3, episode 25, __Deadwood__


   Commandment Number One for any truly civilized society is this: Let 
people be different. 
-- David Grayson [pen name of Ray Stannard Baker], journalist, author (1870-1946)


   Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe,
but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. 
-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956), https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. 
-- William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)


   I hate it when they say, 'He gave his life for his country.' Nobody
gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take
it away from them. They don't die for the honor and glory of their
country. We kill them. 
-- Admiral Gene LaRocque, Retired Rear Admiral of the United States Navy (born 1918)


   Many demolitions are actually renovations. 
-- Jalaluddin Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273)


   You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's
burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.
-- Arthur Plotnik, editor and author (b. 1937)


   It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to
himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving;
it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
-- Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)


   NSFW:
Joe: I'm just thinking, you know, maybe, if I'd done certain things or
maybe didn't do other things, it might've all worked out.  Who knows?
Manfro: You know, Joe, there's not always a reason for shit.  It's just
the universe, pushing and shoving, doing its thing.  You could be
standing there totally still, minding your own business, and that mother
would still mess you up.
Joe: So, like, it's all fate?
Manfro: Or totally random.  Either way, hundred years, totally new people.
-- "The New Guy", __Men of a Certain Age__, 2009


   "I know, I know, where you come from, the rules are different.  But 
they're not."
-- David Kepesh, __Elegy__, 2008


   The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the
rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in
glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction
of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of
one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of
some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they
are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings: always darker, emptier, and
simpler. 
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
-- Christopher Hitchens, author and journalist (b. 1949)


   "Chaahe joh tumhe, poore dil se
Milta hai voh, mushkil se
Aisa joh koi kahin hai
Bas vohi, sab se haseen hai
Oos haath koh, tum thaam loh
Voh meherbaan, kal ho naa ho
Har pal yahan, jeebhar jiyo
Joh hai samah, kal ho naa ho"
[One who loves you whole-heartedly
It is difficult to meet that person
If there is someone like that somewhere
That person is more beautiful than all
Grab onto that (person's) hand
They may not be so gracious tomorrow
Live every moment here to your heart's content
The time that is here may not be tomorrow]
-- Kal Ho Naa Ho, lyrics by Javed Akhtar in __Kal Ho Naa Ho__


   Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it
is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of
mankind. 
-- Giacomo Leopardi, poet, essayist, and philosopher (1798-1837)


   Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to
wisdom. 
-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)


   In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the
humble reasoning of a single individual. 
-- Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)


   Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest
passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.
-- Joyce Carol Oates, writer (b. 1938)


   I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the
second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.
-- Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)


   All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us
is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach
myself from the wickedest soul. 
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)


   Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not
care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues
you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not
want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but
will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your
loved ones. 
-- Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and writer (121-180)


   Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own.
You may both be wrong. 
-- Dandamis, sage (4c BCE)


   The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any
authority, but that of reason. 
-- Mary Wollstonecraft, reformer and writer (1759-1797)


   Science attains results not by a black magic ritual called the
"scientific method" but by the careful evaluation of facts, the seeking
of ways to distinguish between possible alternative explanations, and
the willingness to abandon authority and preconceived ideas that are
shown to be in error.
-- Letter from the Association of Pasadena Scientists to the Hollywood Writers' Mobilization


   NSFW:
Marc Thiessen: If you're a lawyer, these are pro-bono jobs so you have a
limited amount of pro-bono time to spend in litigating something, and you
decide you're going to spend all of your time representing pedophiles, it
would raise a question. 
Jon Stewart: Why?
Marc Thiessen: Because why are you so interested in... why are you
trying to free these people?
Jon Stewart: Because you believe in the rule of law and that the
country's fabric is decided not by the easiest cases to take but by the
hardest cases to take.
-- Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 2010-03-09


   Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human
disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you
will not find another. 
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a
rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and
in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry... To apply a rule with
natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and
without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the
action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery. 
-- George Polya, professor of mathematics (1887-1985)


   Socho toh, mehngi hai
Lehlo toh, sasti hai
Yeh jeevan, yeh duniya, sapna hai deewane ka
You are everything
[If you think about it, it's expensive
If you take it, it's cheap
This life, this world, is the dream of the passionately crazy
You are everything]
-- Lyrics by Ramesh Pant in "Gunmaster G-9: Surakshaa"


   Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and
interface circuit details.  The two models, however, are not compatible
on the same communications line connection.
-- Bell System Technical Reference


   Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our
pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs
and tears.  ...  It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious,
inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us
sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness
and acts that are contrary to habit...
-- Hippocrates "The Sacred Disease"


   NSFW:
Treaties are like roses and young girls - they last while they last.
-- Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)


   "I honestly think it was luck. I think I capitalized on that luck in a
way that I wanted to and in a way that it was important for me to stick
with great filmmakers. Everybody's intentions in the beginning are
great, and even great filmmakers can make bad movies. But you have less
of a chance of making a bad film with a great filmmaker, whereas the
odds are very low with a bad filmmaker that you'll make a great film."
-- Josh Brolin, actor (1968-) on why his career is rebounding, AP News on 2010-05-15 __Life after Bush: 'W.' star Brolin still on a roll__


   I found that the harder I worked, the luckier I got.
-- Bret Michaels, musician (1963-) on 2010-05-16 __Celebrity Apprentice__


   NSFW:
You can be less than mediocre and be a fucking movie star. I have
respect for very few actors and actresses. Some of them get a lot of
acclaim but just because their movie made $200 million at the box
office; they still suck. I got no respect for them and I used to let
them know it. It was important for me to put that aside and go, 'You
know what? This is a business. If you kiss the right ass and you get
lucky on a movie or two, you could last 10 years.' So, now, I just keep
my mouth shut and pet my chihuahuas. 
-- Mickey Rourke, actor (1952-) in __Parade Magazine__ on 2010-05-06


   Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve
you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   We are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the
virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among
whom we live. 
-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)


   Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in
small, though injurious in large, quantities. No man who is not pleased
with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others. 
-- Frederick Saunders, librarian and essayist (1807-1902)


   Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do.
Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
-- Mark Twain


   I was in Vegas last week. I was at the roulette table, having a lengthy
argument about what I considered an Odd number.
-- Steven Wright


   One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells
of a thief who was to be executed.  As he was taken away he made a
bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite
horse to sing hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to
the horse and laughed. 
"You will not succeed," they told him.  "No one can."
To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might
happen in that time.  The king might die.  The horse might die.  I
might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing."
-- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, "The Mote in God's Eye"


   Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving
wordy evidence of the fact.
-- George Eliot


   When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of investigation
of a topic, it is well to have the answer firmly in hand, so that you can
proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or swayed, directly to the goal.
-- Amron Harry Katz, physicist (1915-1997)


   NSFW:
Idiot, n.:
A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human
affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


   politics, n.:
A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
-- Ambrose Bierce


   A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too
near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze. 
-- Diogenes, philosopher (412?-323 BCE)


   Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets
that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn
a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a
translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any
language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the
language. 
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights.
-- Judge Vaughn Walker, ruling on Prop 8 in California, 2010-08-05


   NSFW:
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just
because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe. 
-- Ed Krebs, photographer (b. 1951)


   Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness.
-- Ouida [pen name of Marie Louise de la Ramee], novelist (1839-1908)


   It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem
all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way
of advice than "try to be a little kinder." 
-- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)


   Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask,
and he will tell you the truth. 
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child's training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love. 
-- Hafez, poet (1315-1390)


   It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about
education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an
educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be
caught up into the world of thought - that is, to be educated. 
-- Edith Hamilton, educator and writer (1867-1963)


   Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the
headlights, but you make the whole trip that way. 
-- E.L. Doctorow, writer (b. 1931)


   "To be born a gentleman is an accident - to die a gentleman is an achievement"
-- Anonymous


   "India has given birth to so many reformers of organized religion that
one wonders if it is a natural cycle: each of them shows common people
the simple but neglected path to a personal faith, but they deify him
into a divine status he never wanted, establishing an institution, and
the circle begins all over again."
-- Ananda Lal __Spiritual Cycles; The Telegraph__, 2010-09-11


   There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to
find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
-- Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel laureate (b. 1918)


   If you start the research to test one hypothesis, and decide, when you
see what you have, that the data really seem to test some other
hypothesis better, don't worry. Write them both down, and pick the best
combinations of hypotheses, objectives, and data. Often the objectives
of a paper when it is finished are different from those used to justify
starting the work. Much of good science is opportunistic and revisionist.
-- George M. Whitesides, Chemist, __Whitesides' Group: Writing a Paper__, 2004


   Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity,
that nothing is. 
-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)


   I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
...
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
-- Peter Townshend (The Who), __Won't Get Fooled Again__


   One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary
actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   "For people like me, there were only two options. One was to abandon all
dreams, which would lead to a quick, hopeless death. The other was to
struggle without arms to live an outstanding life." 
-- Liu Wei, Armless Pianist on __China's Got Talent__, 2010-10-11


   Extreme justice is extreme injustice. 
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)


   Understand what's going to come out of that bad decision; don't just sit
and expect the man to be what you want him to be when he never was what
you thought he could be.
-- Unknown Man in __Diary of a Tired Black Man__ by Tim Alexander


   The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of
those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have
too little. 
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)


   Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of
a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)


   No business which depends for existence on paying less than living
wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country... and
by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean
the wages of decent living.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)


   Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves. 
-- Gene Fowler, journalist and author (1890-1960)


   In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can
get through, but rather how many can get through to you. 
-- Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)


   A change is as good as a break.
-- William Young, quoted by Julie Rowlett in http://www.math.ucsb.edu/~ellie/hypatianseminar/rowletttalk.pdf
A change is as good as a rest.
-- British proverb


   We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge
us by what we have already done. 
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)


   NSFW:
Toota toota ek parinda aise toota ke phir judna paaya 
Loota loota kisne usko aise loota ke phir udna paaya
Girta hua woh aasma se aake gira zaameen par 
Khwabon mein phir bhi badal hi the woh kehta raha magar 
Ke allah ke bandhe hasde, allah ke bandhe 
allah ke bandhe hasde jo bhi ho kal phir aayega 
[A bird was shattered so much that it could not be put back together
It was devastated to such an extent that it couldn't fly again]
[He fell from the sky and fell hard to the Earth
But the clouds were still in his dreams and he kept saying]
[Oh, man of God, smile
Whatever it is, oh man of God, tomorrow will come again]
-- "Allah ke Bande", by Kailash Kher in __Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II__


   Iss dharti ka hai raja tu, yeh baat jaan le tu
Kathnaayi se takraa ja tu, nahin haar maan le tu
O Mitwa, suhn mitwa, tujhko kya darr hai reh
Yeh dharti, apni hai, apna ambar hai reh
[You are the king of this Earth, know this
Fight difficulties, never admit defeat
O beloved friend, listen friend, why are you afraid?
This Earth, it's ours, ours is the Sky]
-- "Mitwa", lyrics by Javed Akhtar in __Lagaan__


   Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't
read the lines. 
-- Margaret Millar, novelist (1915-1994)


   "For me, everything just kind of worked out. I always enjoyed what I
was doing, so working was never drudgery. It was something I did on
Monday morning when I got up and left the house. And my family - I
think they've been great at allowing me to do my thing.
There is a saying, "It's better to be lucky than smart."  I think, if
anything, I've been lucky in life. Lucky, in that I met a lot of
wonderful people by chance, including my wife.  In business, I've been
fortunate to meet some really wonderful people who have helped me, and
I hope I've helped them in return."
-- Bruce Pellegrino, VIT and GE, http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/how-one-entrepreneur-went-from-mowing-lawns-to-building-multi-million-dollar-businesses-535675.html


   A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
-- Thomas Carruthers, Educational Theorist, early 20th Century


   Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or
architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
-- Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)


   Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to
meet a duck because you like pate. 
-- Margaret Atwood, novelist and poet (b. 1939)


   To want to meet an author because you like his books is as ridiculous
as wanting to meet the goose because you like pate de foie gras.
-- Arthur Koestler, author (5 Sep 1905-1983)


   Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know
where we can find information upon it. 
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)


   Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading
newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand
of a clock.
-- Ben Hecht, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, director, and producer (1894-1964)


   I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or
bitterness towards anyone. 
-- Edith Cavell, nurse and humanitarian (1865-1915)


   Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds
are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her
tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)


   Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. 
-- Montesquieu, Charles de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brde et de Montesquieu, philosopher and writer (1689-1755)


   Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, that processes of
co-ordination and disintegration follow each other with great
regularity, and the index of the co-ordination is the measure of the
disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of
well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline 
[...]
There is no hater like one who has greatly loved. 
-- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)


   The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness,
honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in
our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed,
acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of
success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the
produce of the second. 
-- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (27 Feb 1902-1968)


   NSFW:
Do some s***. What's the worst that can happen... no s***!
-- Jasmeet Bhasin


   Paapi koh paap nahi [lagtaa], nashaa lagtaa hai.
[The sinner doesn't have sin, only intoxication]
-- Jasmeet Bhasin


   We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a
troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death. 
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)


   If you have to hate, hate gently.
-- Anonymous


   Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. 
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   NSFW:
To die is only to be as we were before we were born. 
-- William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)


   More stuff gets done in the last minute than any other minute.
-- Poorang Mohajer


   It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of
work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to
do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting
one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. 
-- Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)


   Between truth and the search for truth, I opt for the second. 
-- Bernard Berenson, art historian (1865-1959)


   The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the
rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in
glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a
fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the
inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely
distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their
misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent
their hatreds. 
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)


   There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in
the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of
five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)


   NSFW:
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence,
it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)


   The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a
full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague
fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we
ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest
people in the world. 
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)


   The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
-- Richard Bach, Author (b. 1936), in __Illusions__


   There's something different about us - different from people of
Europe, Africa, Asia - a deep and abiding belief in the Easter Bunny. 
-- G. Gordon Liddy, Lawyer, FBI Agent, Talk Show Host, Nut (b. 1930)


   At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount
of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits
more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to
function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal
with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord
our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of
comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of
value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are
claiming special privileges which should not be granted. 
-- Eric Idle, comedian, actor, and author (b. 1943)


   When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an
exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding
myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have
done with my own hands. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
know how seldom they do.
-- Olin Miller


   You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you
when you realize how seldom they do.
-- David Foster Wallace


   You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice,
bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
-- Aristophanes


   Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his
cleverness forbids. 
-- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)


   There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like
schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a
book without having worked out the sum for themselves. 
-- Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1813-1855)


   House: "But you said you loved rodeo. This means you can't do it anymore.  Why would you do that?"
Cowboy: "Well, I can find something else to love."
-- David Shore, Thomas L. Moran, and Lawrence Kaplow, writing for __House__, "Out of the Chute"


   If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in
each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. 
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)


   Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and
the human race come to an end. 
-- Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)


   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, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)


   Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which,
under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which
are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
-- George Washington, 1st US president, general (1732-1799)


   Every man possesses three characters: that which he exhibits, that
which he really has, and that which he believes he has.
-- Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, novelist and journalist (1808-1890)


   The weirdness of the human mind is that most of your thinking, *you*
don't do.  I mean, the you which thinks it's in control of your head.
That's why, in fact, sentences sort of appear on the stage of your own
interior drama and you actually don't know where the sentence is going
to go until you get to the end of it.
-- Gregory Benford, Astrophysicist (1941 - ), __Thinking Creatively__ on __Mastering the College Experience__


   It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in
order more sanely to judge our own, and that we do not think that
everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as
those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think. 
-- Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)


   Only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good
in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know
nothing. 
-- Paul Auster, novelist and poet (b. 1947)


   The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but
that he cannot believe anyone else. 
-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)


   Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, novelist (1821-1881)


   Life is a long lesson in humility. 
-- James M. Barrie, novelist, short-story writer, and playwright (1860-1937)


   We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. The most alarming spectacle today
is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is
the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of
loyalty oaths and witchhunts, beginning to call anybody they don't
like a Communist. 
-- E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)


   As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
-- Albert Einstein, physicist (1879 - 1955), __Geometry and Experience__, January 27, 1921


   It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.
-- Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)


   I used to think your reality shaped your politics; it's clear now your
politics shapes reality.
-- Jon Stewart, __The Daily Show__ on 2011-06-30


   Some tropes are so embedded in society that they're basically
invisible, even in a considered process like movie-making.
-- Jon Stewart, podcast on 2022-01-05, https://twitter.com/jonstewart/status/1478791577573199875


   The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly
indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The
world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone
outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be
spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled
by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human
action. 
-- Winston Churchill, politician and statesman (1874-1965)


   Everyone who comes in here wants three things:
1. They want it quick.
2. They want it good.
3. They want it cheap.
I tell 'em to pick two and call me back.
-- A sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware


   NSFW:
If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. 
-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)


   If you have a weak candidate and a weak platform, wrap yourself up in
the American flag and talk about the Constitution. 
-- Matthew Stanley Quay, senator (1833-1904)


   Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. 
-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)


   NSFW:
Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice
the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having
someone else's religion practiced on us. 
-- John Irving, novelist (b. 1942)


   The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more
than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and
nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
-- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)


   The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)


   By a free country, I mean a country where people are allowed, so long
as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not
mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like.
-- Robert Cecil, British prime minister (1830-1903)


   That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy
which is followed by sorrow. 
-- Saadi, poet (c. 1213-1291)


   All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the
ocean merges into the drop. 
-- Kabir, reformer, poet (late 15th century)


   Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim
above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not
be done at all. 
-- Peter Drucker, management consultant, professor, and writer (1909-2005)


   Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful,
unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor
imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy,
dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites. 
-- Taisen Deshimaru, Zen teacher (1914-1982)


   A problem well stated is a problem half solved. 
-- Charles F. Kettering, inventor and engineer (1876-1958)


   To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same.
A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he
ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret
literally. 
-- W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)


   I and the public know.
What all schoolchildren learn.
Those to whom evil is done.
Do evil in return.
- -W.H. Auden, poet (21 Feb 1907-1973)


   The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or a
new thing in an old way. 
-- Richard Harding Davis, journalist and author (1864-1916)


   There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know
till he takes up a pen to write. 
-- William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)


   There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the
truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the
second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important
than the other. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of
high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would
become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of
art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science
keeps art from becoming ridiculous. 
-- Raymond Thornton Chandler, writer (1888 - 1959)


   Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom
consists in not exceeding the limit. 
-- Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856 - 1915)


   Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. 
-- A.A. Milne author (1882 - 1956)


   NSFW:
Eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love.
-- Bill Hicks, comedian and social critic (1961 - 1994)


   We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion
that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past,
or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong. 
-- Karl Popper, philosopher and professor (1902 - 1994)


   To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709 - 1784)


   Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the
child as it is to the caterpillar. 
-- Bradley Miller, activist (b. 1956)


   "Grief is the price we pay for love."
-- Elizabeth II quotes (Queen of the United Kingdom, b.1926)


   Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to
give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of
your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your
chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.
-- Jamie Anderson, author, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9657488-grief-i-ve-learned-is-really-just-love-it-s-all-the


   I've never experienced loss because I've never had a loved one to lose. 
What is grief, if not love persevering?
-- __Wandavision__, Episode 8, written by Laura Donney, https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a35713623/wandavision-episode-8-grief-quote-explained/


   On my mom's birthday every year, I try to celebrate her as much as
possible, but today I really wanted to celebrate her with her. Some
years my grief makes me feel the warmth of her love, some years it
makes me angry, some years I feel numb but today when I woke up I just
felt sad. I didn't want to celebrate, I just wanted my mom.
-- Billie Lourd Remembers Carrie Fisher, 2024-10-22, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/billie-lourd-remembers-carrie-fisher-180532245.html and https://www.instagram.com/p/DBZI-ntP8sC/


   Make no judgments where you have no compassion. 
-- Anne McCaffrey, writer (1 Apr 1926-2011)


   Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and
all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust
compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to
be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were
mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out
argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply
plenty of time for silence. 
-- Christopher Hitchens, author and journalist (1949 - 2011)


   So, I guess what I've learned from this experience is that she was
such a tremendous human being and, as a gentleman said at her funeral
this morning, she always had the guts to say the hard things to her
kids... And all I could think about was this is a woman we thought
would live forever.  Even when she was diagnosed, over a year ago,
with this horrible, obscene... anybody who has nudged up against this
knows how obscene this is... we thought she would live forever.  And
she came in every day. She would come in after radiation, she would
come in after chemo.  And we would say, "How are you?" and she said,
"I'm fine".  And we believed, we really believed, there's not a person
on this staff who didn't think she was going to beat this.  
And she fought it for well over a year and by God she did everything
they asked of her.  Everything.  And they took her apart.  And it was
just too much... too much for any human being.  And I see these kids
and I think this is the gift of this woman's life. By God, have the
strength, have the energy, have the courage to say something, to do
something, to make mistakes.  And the spirit for you kids... I don't
know much about life but I know one thing for a fact: you will always
have your mother. 
-- David Letterman, upon the passing of his staff member, Michelle O'Callaghan, on 2011-12-19


   Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give
without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without
meanness. 
-- George Sand [pen name of Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin], novelist (1804 - 1876)


   Most people think that shadows follow, precede, or surround beings or
objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires,
deeds, impulses and memories. 
-- Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)


   I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I
prayed with my legs. 
-- Frederick Douglass, Former slave, abolitionist, editor, and orator (1817-1895)


   There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the
glare that obscures.
-- James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)


   I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to
keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old
acquaintance among the pines. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   Habit with him was all the test of truth,
It must be right: I've done it from my youth. 
-- George Crabbe, poet and naturalist (1754-1832)


   I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or
bitterness towards anyone. 
-- Edith Cavell, nurse and humanitarian (1865-1915)


   The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. 
-- Linus Pauling, chemist, peace activist, author, educator; Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Peace Prize (1901-1994)


   If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, - quieter, warmer. 
-- Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, Nobel laureate (1905-1961)


   We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to
understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand
us. 
-- Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-100)


   Bill Moyers: What do you think they saw that Wall Street didn't see?
John S. Reed: They simply didn't participate in the exuberance.
-- Bill Moyers talking to Former Citigroup CEO John S. Reed about the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act on __Moyers & Company__, 2012-03-18


   If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer,
you are the product. 
-- Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law (b. 1969)


   A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There
is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of
life getting his living. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


   Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of
human life. 
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)


   NSFW:
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurence of the
improbable.
-- H. L. Mencken, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/


   What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.
-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)


   Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not
so often the result of a great design as of chance. 
-- Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)


   Charlie Munger: We have had a lot of fun together, Warren and I.  And
it just happened that the way we like spending our days coincided with
something that worked in the investment process, so weren't we lucky
people?  If we liked chorus girls, we wouldn't have such a good
investment record.
-- __Warrent Buffett: The Modern Midas__, 2010


   Warren Buffett: When I was born, I was wired a certain way.  It works
wonderfully in a big, capitalist society, but I shouldn't delude
myself into thinking that I'm some superior individual because of
that. In the end, a market system allows me to get this enormous,
disproportionate amount of the country's resources into my hands.  I'm
lucky and I think that a fair amount of that luck should be shared
with others.
-- __Warrent Buffett: The Modern Midas__, 2010


   We learn to demonize the enemy.  That's why I think Jung is so wrong.
We don't do it out of instinct.  Warfare is not an instinct. Aggresion
is an instinct; we have instinctual energies and things like that.
Creation of an enemy is something that we do; we educate people to
hate.  And that's the most important thing to understand. Hate is not
instinctual. Hate is trained.  Hate is learned.
-- Sam Keen, Philosopher, Mythoanalyst, on __The Anatomy of Hate__, 2011


   NSFW:
When we are in the process of congratulating ourselves as heroes
bringing democracy to the world or when the jihadists are
congratulating themselves on doing the will of Allah by eliminating
the infidels, we are both unconscious, first of all, of all of the
harm and all of the cruelty and all of the evil that we bring about in
the world.  But the second thing that we're unconscious of, which is
almost more important, is we are unconscious of the ways in which we
are squandering the possibility of making happy lives, fulfilled
lives, of healing lives, of making better society...
-- Sam Keen, Philosopher, Mythoanalyst, on __The Anatomy of Hate__, 2011


   We're taught to suspect people.  We're taught that the enemy is
untrustworthy and everything else.  Now, a society that would own the
fact that its images of evil are images that they inculcate in the
young could then say, "What would it need to educate for compassion?" 
-- Sam Keen, Philosopher, Mythoanalyst, on __The Anatomy of Hate__, 2011


   Dayana [Mendoza] complained to me a bit and I listened. I often find
that, in situations when someone's very upset, if you just shut up and
look at them, it's really the best thing to do.  Sometimes not trying
to solve things is the best way to solve things.
-- Penn Jillette, Illusionist (1955 - ), on __The Celebrity Apprentice__, 2012


   Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near
the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people
to do so.
-- Bertrand Russell, Mathematician (1872 - 1970)


   Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must
always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs. 
-- Max Beerbohm, essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (1872-1956)


   In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and
the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because
passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be
the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.
-- Lee Iacocca, automobile executive (b. 1924)


   There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the
mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we
read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


   Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. 
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)


   You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
-- Song "Enjoy Yourself", lyrics by Herb Magidson (1949)


   The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the
continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of
knowledge. 
-- Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)


   The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are
the easiest person to fool.
I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but
something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the
laymen when you're talking as a scientist... I'm talking about a
specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over
backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, [an integrity] that you
ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our
responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I
think to laymen.
By honest I don't mean that you only tell what's true. But you make
clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is
required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind.
It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought
that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty - a kind of leaning over
backwards.  For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should
report everything that you think might make it invalid - not only what
you think is right about it. In summary, the idea is to try to give
all of the information to help others to judge the value of your
contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one
particular direction or another.
-- Richard P. Feynman


   If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to
express it will be good. 
-- Thornton Wilder, writer (1897-1975)


   Have you ever seen 
anything 
in your life 
more wonderful
than the way the sun, 
every evening, 
relaxed and easy, 
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills, 
or the rumpled sea, 
and is gone-- 
and how it slides again
out of the blackness, 
every morning, 
on the other side of the world, 
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 
say, on a morning in early summer, 
at its perfect imperial distance-- 
and have you ever felt for anything 
such wild love-- 
do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 
a word billowing enough 
for the pleasure
that fills you, 
as the sun 
reaches out, 
as it warms you
as you stand there, 
empty-handed-- 
or have you too 
turned from this world--
or have you too 
gone crazy 
for power, 
for things?
-- __The Sun__ by Mary Oliver (1935 - )


   Keith Morrison: How could you do that [forgive him], after what he did to you?
Lydia Tillman: To heal myself rather than being angry.
Keith Morrison: Because that would not help you?  You harbor no bitterness?
Lydia Tillman: Rarely, I get mad.  I believe Travis Forbes was acting 
out of fear and hatred. I choose love and peace over fear. And, um, 
I won.
-- Lydia Tillman (Live Your Days Inspired Anew) on __Dateline NBC__ on 2012-07-13


   In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this
country, capitalism triumphed over democracy. 
-- Fran Lebowitz, author (b. 1950)


   NSFW:
Allah's arranging things beyond all our grasps.  The Earth isn't
spinning because you told it to.  Your intestines aren't digesting by
your command.  You're made up of a trillion cells that don't ask your
permission before offering their raka'ats. And we think submission's
about applying a strict discipline to our worship?  We think surrender
is about not eating a pig? It's not that small to me.  I can't fit my
deen in a little box, because to me, everything comes from Allah.
Birds sing Allah's name.  To say Allah is in this book and not that
one, or he likes this but not that... do you know who you're talking
about?  Allah is too big and open for my deen to be small and closed.
Does that make me a kafir?  I say, "Allah hu Akbar."  If that's not
good enough, then fuck Islam. You can have it. Imam Husain said, "He
who has no religion, let him at least be free in his present life." So
there you go. Now let's pray.
-- __Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam__, Michael Muhammad Knight, American Muslim novelist, journalist, and performance artist (b. 1977)


   Since my house burned down
I now own a better view
of the rising moon.
-- Mizuta Masahide, poet and samurai (1657-1723)


   The art happens inside the viewer.  The art isn't in the object. If
you go to a museum, and you look at a van Gogh or you look at a
Picasso or you look at a piece like this, the art is not there.  The
art happens inside you, the viewer.  And the art is your sense of your
own potential as a person. And that's where the art is. These are just
kind of like transponders, they just trigger that information within you. 
-- Jeff Koons, American artist


   Every time you go to your doctor, you're participating in an
experiment.  If your physician denies that, he is either incompetent
or in denial.
-- Randall Wetzel, Physician, Children's Hospital LA, 2012-08-10, http://mucmd.org/program-information.php#a


   Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their
possessions. 
-- Frank Lloyd Wright, architect (1867-1959)


   NSFW:
No man was ever more than about nine meals away from crime or suicide.
-- Eric Sevareid, journalist (1912-1992)


   There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought
one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.
-- Pierre Bayle, philosopher and writer (1647-1706)


   A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent
concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we
mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity
for erudition.
-- Charles Caleb Colton; Lacon: or Many Things in Few Words; Longmans; 1837


   To bring that relaxation response about, there has to be a repetition
of a word. Close your eyes and you're gonna find all sorts of other
thoughts coming to mind. They're normal, and they're natural, and they
should be expected. And when they occur, don't be upset, but simply
say, 
"Oh, well. Peace." 
There's a quietude in the brain that occurs when you evoke the
relaxation response.
-- Herbert Benson, M.D. (born 1935), American cardiologist, in http://tosubtitles.com/through-the-wormhole-mysteries-of-the-subconscious-2012-english-english/37742


   Ah, good taste, what a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of
creativeness. 
-- Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor (1881-1973)


   The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes
an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day
he forgives himself, he becomes wise. 
-- Alden Nowlan, poet, novelist, and playwright (1933-1983)


   We should tackle reality in a slightly jokey way, otherwise we miss
its point. 
-- Lawrence Durrell, novelist, poet, and playwright (1912-1990)


   Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear
of the dark, of night, of the other side of things. 
-- Jean Baudrillard, sociologist and philosopher (1929-2007)


   I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty
to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The
world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but
also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. 
-- Helen Adams Keller, lecturer and author (1880-1968)


   The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life
walking down a high-walled land with people of our own kind, the same
economic situation, the same national background and education and
religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown
and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives.
-- Florence Luscomb, architect and suffragist (1887-1985)


   To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we
are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how
productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely
that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the
economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.
-- Norman Mailer, author (1923-2007)


   My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from
hurting others, and comforting those who are sad. 
-- Olive Schreiner, author (1855-1920)


   Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life
has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when you were not:
that gives us no concern. Why then should it trouble us that a time
will come when we shall cease to be? To die is only to be as we were
before we were born. 
-- William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)


   The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor
the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss
of sin. 
-- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)


   NSFW:
You can't do anything with anybody's body to make it dirty to me. Six
people, eight people, one person - you can do only one thing to make
it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty. 
-- Lenny Bruce, comedian and social critic (1925-1966)


   The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like
putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid
of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, 'Here I am - just so
ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous -
take me or leave me.' And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing
only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own
nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man's back when he
comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life
only what is truly his own. 
-- David Grayson [pen name of Ray Stannard Baker], journalist, author (1870-1946)


   Be humble for you are made of Earth. Be noble for you are made of
stars. 
-- Serbian proverb


   I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to
have things I am not able to appreciate. 
-- Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)


   This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
-- William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)


   When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. 
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (b. 1949)


   "We all come from old families, no new strains of humanity having
colonized the planet recently... The main thing to be said for
half-imagined, half-constructed shared identities - which both race
and country are - is that they tie people together with some sense of
obligation and shared fate." 
-- Jedediah Purdy, Professor, Duke Law School, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jedediah-purdy/whiteness-in-the-age-of-o_b_2193779.html


   It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. 
-- Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)


   There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
-- Leonard Cohen, Canadian singer-songwriter and poet (b. 1934) "Hallelujah"


   One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good
poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few
reasonable words. 
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)


   Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd
-- "Simple Gifts" by Elder Joseph Brackett, 1848


   Walking is man's best medicine. 
-- Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine (460-377 BCE)


   We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't
care for. 
-- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach, writer (1830-1916)


   Your brain is actively constructing [time]... In the same way that
colors don't actually exist in the outside world, all you have is
electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths, and your brain
constructs colour. Maybe the brain constructs time... Time might be
one of the most stubborn psychological filters by which we're
experiencing the world.
-- David Eagleman, Neuroscientist, on __Closer to Truth__, "Time at Sea"


   Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive
triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral
universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I
cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience
of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure
it bends towards justice.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
-- Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister and American Transcendentalist (1810 - 1860)


   It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. 
-- Cesare Beccaria, philosopher and politician (1738-1794)


   Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that
I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and
important person in existence. 
-- David Foster Wallace, __This is Water__


   Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good
person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people
(including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I
ever actually know whether I'm bullshitting myself, morally speaking?
-- David Foster Wallace, __Consider the Lobster and Other Essays__


   "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some
control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and
aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you
construct meaning from experience.
-- David Foster Wallace, __This is Water__


   It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically
sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your
default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider
possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. 
But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there
are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience
a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only
meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the
stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing
that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try
to see it.
This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to
be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and
what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
-- David Foster Wallace, __This is Water__


   Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.
-- Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694)


   Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.
-- Ronald Wright, Canadian Author (1948 - )


   Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the
child that lost a dog yesterday. 
-- Thornton Wilder, writer (17 Apr 1897-1975)


   Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:
At the first gate, ask yourself, "Is it true?"
At the second gate ask, "Is it necessary?"
At the third gate ask, "Is it kind?"
-- Sufi proverb


   The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the
continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of
knowledge. 
-- Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)


   The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the
everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation
of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.
Many scientific theories are so well established that no new evidence
is likely to alter them substantially... 
[All scientific theories are] subject to continuing refinement as new
areas of science emerge or as new technologies enable observations and
experiments that were not possible previously. One of the most useful
properties of scientific theories is that they can be used to make
predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been
observed... 
In science, a "fact" typically refers to an observation, measurement,
or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way
under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term
"fact" to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and
confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to
keep testing it or looking for additional examples. 
-- In __Science, Evolution, and Creationism__ by National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, 2008 (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11876&page=11)


   When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people
are hungry, they call me a communist. 
-- Helder Camara, archbishop (1909-1999)


   I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree
with them.
-- George W. Bush, US President from Jan 20, 2001 - Jan 20, 2009


   Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. 
-- Susan Sontag, author and critic (1933-2004)


   There isn't anyone you couldn't love once you've heard their story. 
-- Mary Lou Kownacki, American Benedictine nun and writer


   This is the sound of what you don't believe still true.
-- El-P (Jaime Meline), __Tasmanian Pain Coaster__


   We now like to look at stuff written on bathroom walls (twitter) and
put it in more visible places like community bulletin boards (huffpo)
and then the newspapers pick it up (npr).
-- P Duggan, Commenter on NPR Discussion Board, http://www.npr.org/2013/09/18/223695339/here-she-comes-the-first-indian-american-miss-america


   No battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field
only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an
illusion of philosophers and fools. 
-- William Faulkner, novelist (1897-1962)


   Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form - no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space - ample the fields of Nature.
-- In __Continuities__, Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)


   Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. 
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   Sometimes when I wake up early, I wonder if I'm the bird or the worm
-- Hasheem Hardimon


   Roko mat, toko mat
Sochne do inhe sochne do
...
Kitabon ke baahar kitaabein bahut hain
Bachpan se bada koi school nahi
Curiosity se badi koi teacher nahi
[Don't stop them, don't scold them
Let them think, just let them think
...
There are many books outside of books
There is no school greater than childhood
There is no teacher greater than curiosity]
-- Gulzar, Indian poet, lyricist and director in __Roko Mat Toko Mat__, Parle-G Commercial http://kri8tv-box.blogspot.com/2013/01/roko-mat-toko-mat-nikalne-do-pao-jurabe.html


   A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm,
thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to
others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with
bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.
-- Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Nobel laureate (b. 1924)


   Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
-- John Lennon, musician (9 Oct 1940-1980)


   And the years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searchin'
Searching for shelter again and again
Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter against the wind
Well those drifters days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out
Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
Well I'm older now and still
Against the wind
-- Bob Seger (Robert Clark Seger), musician (1945 - )


   Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you
have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you
use. 
-- Emily Post, author and columnist (1872-1960)


   A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. 
-- R.K. Narayan, writer (1906-2001)


   Humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development
of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them
to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt,
these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it.
Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the
efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from
material care and freely consecrated to research. 
-- Marie Curie, scientist, Nobel laureate (1867-1934)


   You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life
before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
-- Billie Holiday, jazz singer and songwriter (1915-1959)


   It's the want of something that gives you the blues. It's not what
*isn't*, it's what you wish *was* that makes unhappiness. 
-- Janis Lyn Joplin, American singer-songwriter (1943-1970)


   The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To
give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation. 
-- Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)


   Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it
was or what freedom really is. 
-- Margaret Mitchell, novelist (1900-1949)


   Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every
once in a while, or the light won't come in. 
-- Alan Alda, actor and director (b. 1936)


   Fatela jeb sil jayega, jo chahega mil jayega
Tere bhi din aayenge chhote, achcha khasa hil jayega
Rukne ka nahi thakne ka nahi, life mein chalte rehne ka
Arre bheja kyun sarka ne ka, sahi bolta sahi bolta
Tension kayko lene ka, sahi bolta sahi bolta
...
Aaj to hai andhera, kal hoga ujala
Arre apni diwali hogi, kisi aur ka hoga diwala
[Your torn pockets will be fixed, you'll get whatever you want
Your time will also come junior, good times are on the way
Don't stop and don't get tired, just keep moving in life
Hey don't think too much, right you are right you are
Why do you want to take tension, right you are right you are
...
Today it's dark, tomorrow it'll be bright
Hey things will look up for us, someone else will be busted]
-- __Phatela Jeb__ from movie __Aankhen__ (2002)


   Graham Chapman, co-author of the "Parrot Sketch", is no more. He has
ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's kicked the
bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last,
and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky. And
I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such
talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence,
should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only
forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was
capable, and before he'd had enough fun.
Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the
freeloading bastard, I hope he fries. And the reason I feel I should
say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away
this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for
him, but mindless good taste.
-- John Marwood Cleese, English actor, comedian, and writer (b. 1939) at private funeral for Graham Chapman, fellow Monty Pythoner


   I read a definition of humor which really stuck with me and what they
said was that having a sense of humor is the ability to suddenly see a
change of context.
-- John Marwood Cleese, English actor, comedian, and writer (b. 1939), Club Random, 2024-03-17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9Deam6daU


   I think the Consciousness is some extraordinary thing that exists out
there and that our brains don't generate Consciousness. Our brains are
like a television set; we don't produce the program in the television
set, the television set allows us to access the program that's out
there. This transmission Theory it's called I think.
-- John Marwood Cleese, English actor, comedian, and writer (b. 1939), Club Random, 2024-03-17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9Deam6daU


   You remember those Solomon Ash experiments problem is there's two in
the 50s about obedience one of his we had an experiment in like with
the prison guard thing well that that was one but there was another
one that was much more interesting which was and he just got a group
of people and he said we want to show you some very simple pictures I
think in those days it was on a on a sort of easel and we want you to
tell them what do you think this line is longer than that line right
and there were about six people in the room and five of them were
plants only one guy who was a genuine okay subject so they were
studying him and the others all looked at the picture of the line
being stronger along one line longer than the other and they all said
that the shorter line was longer and the first first time the guy said
no I think the other line is longer he was right by the second time he
was really doubting by the third time he was agreeing with the others
and saying that the shorter line was longer now what the point was
there was no pressure on him there was no physical threat there was
nobody saying anything other than just tell us what you think but by
the third attempt he had come in conform with everyone else. 
-- John Marwood Cleese, English actor, comedian, and writer (b. 1939), Club Random, 2024-03-17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9Deam6daU


   Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And... always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life...
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
So always look on the bright side of death 
Just before you draw your terminal breath
-- Eric Idle, English comedian, actor, and author (b. 1943), __Life of Brian__


   Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of
thought. 
-- John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)


   All models are wrong, but some are useful.
-- George E.P. Box, statistician (1919 - 2013)


   To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
-- Thomas Campbell, poet (1777 - 1844)


   Mast baharo kaa mai ashik, mai jo chahu yar karu...
Sara jahan hai mere liye, mere liye
[I'm a lover of fun youth, I do what I want
The whole world is for me, for me]
-- __Mast Baharo Kaa Mai Ashik__ from __Farz__ by lyricist Anand Bakshi (1967)


   All men are brothers, we like to say, half-wishing sometimes in secret
it were not true. But perhaps it is true. And is the evolutionary line
from protozoan to Spinoza any less certain? That also may be true. We
are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though
it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are
kindred. 
-- Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)


   The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent
for luck. 
-- Hector Berlioz, composer (1803-1869)


   What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables
you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The
mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes
an advantage is pernicious. 
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)


   Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our
own minds. 
-- Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)


   Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only
you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other
people spend it for you. 
-- Carl Sandburg, poet (1878-1967)


   Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its
full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does
not limit itself to mankind. 
-- Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)


   It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from
corporal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are
present to witness it. 
-- Anton Chekhov, short-story writer and dramatist (1860-1904)


   Non-violence leads to the highest ethics... until we stop harming all
other living beings, we are still savages.
-- Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)


   "You know what I'll miss the most, and it's very selfish, was fun.
Steve was fun. He taught me that it's okay to play in the rain and
splash in mud puddles. And let the kids  get dirty. And spill ice
cream on your pants. He didn't sweat the little stuff. He saw the big
picture. And he had fun. Now I'm going to work really hard at having
fun again."
-- Terri Irwin, interview with Barbara Walters three weeks after the passing of Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2716887&page=3


   NSFW:
It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in
order to save us. 
-- Peter De Vries, novelist (1910-1993)


   A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.
-- Ralph Nader, activist, author, speaker, and attorney (b. 1934)


   NSFW:
It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as
it is apt to lead to infidelity. 
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President (1809-1865)


   Do you love me because I'm beautiful, or am I beautiful because you
love me? 
-- Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist (1895-1960)


   NSFW:
I understand why the Arabs want us dead but do they really expect us
to cooperate?
-- Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister, 1898 - 1978


   Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that
the offense cannot reach it. 
-- Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)


   Man needs to go outside himself in order to find repose and reveal
himself. 
-- Jose Marti, revolutionary and poet (1853-1895)


   Finding truth is difficult. And the road to it is rough. As seekers of
the truth you will be wise to withhold judgment and not simply put
your trust in the writings of the ancients. You must question and
critically examine those writings from every side. You must admit only
to argument and experiment, and not to the sayings of any person. For
every human being is vulnerable to all kinds of imperfection. As
seekers of the truth we must also suspect and question our own ideas
as we perform our investigations, to avoid falling into prejudice or
careless thinking. Take this course and truth will be revealed to you.
-- Ibn Al-Haytham (Alhazen), Arab astronomer and mathematician (965 - 1040), on __Cosmos__


   Say yes to life, say yes to love, say yes to me!
-- William Haines to Irene Purcell in __Just a Gigolo__ (1931)


   I don't mind that you think slowly but I do mind that you are
publishing faster than you think. 
-- Wolfgang Pauli, physicist, Nobel laureate (1900-1958)


   My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. 
-- Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)


   Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of
optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern
what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
-- Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)


   It's got to come from somewhere. So you have to choose what you're
thinking so that you can't say anything but that line. So the line is
really an after-effect of what you're feeling and doing and thinking.
-- Valerie Harper, on memorizing lines for plays, __The Howard Stern Show__, 2014-04-16


   Arts degrees are awesome. And they help you find meaning where there
is none. And let me assure you, there is none. Don't go looking for it.
Searching for meaning is like searching for a rhyme scheme in a
cookbook: you won't find it and you'll bugger up your souffle...
I said at the beginning of this ramble that life is meaningless. It
was not a flippant assertion. I think it's absurd: the idea of seeking
"meaning" in the set of circumstances that happens to exist after 13.8
billion years worth of unguided events. 
There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and
that is: fill it...
And in my opinion (until I change it), life is best filled by learning
as much as you can about as much as you can, taking pride in whatever
you're doing, having compassion, sharing ideas, running(!), being
enthusiastic. And then there's love, and travel, and wine, and sex,
and art, and kids, and giving, and mountain climbing; but you know all
that stuff already.
It's an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of
yours. Good luck. 
-- Tim Minchin, Australian Comedian and Writer, Graduation Address at University of Western Australia, 2013


   You were incalculably lucky to be born, and incredibly lucky to be
brought up by a nice family that helped you get educated and
encouraged you to go to Uni. Or if you were born into a horrible
family, that's unlucky and you have my sympathy but you were still
lucky: lucky that you happened to be made of the sort of DNA that made
the sort of brain which, when placed in a horrible childhood
environment, would make decisions that meant you ended up, eventually,
graduating Uni. Well done you, for dragging yourself up by the
shoelaces, but you were lucky.
-- Tim Minchin, Australian Comedian and Writer, Graduation Address at University of Western Australia, 2013


   NSFW:
A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that
everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this, but I would add that
opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be
constantly and thoroughly examined. We must think critically, and not
just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out
onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat. Be intellectually
rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege. 
-- Tim Minchin, Australian Comedian and Writer, Graduation Address at University of Western Australia, 2013


   Please don't make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at
odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea.
You don't have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write
beautiful things... You don't need to be superstitious to be a poet.
You don't need to hate GM technology to care about the beauty of the
planet. You don't have to claim a soul to promote compassion. Science
is not a body of knowledge nor a system of belief; it is just a term
which describes humankind's incremental acquisition of understanding
through observation. Science is awesome. 
-- Tim Minchin, Australian Comedian and Writer, Graduation Address at University of Western Australia, 2013


   Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing
exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the
well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. 
-- Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1819-1891)


   Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery.
-- William Golding, novelist, playwright, poet, Nobelist (1911-1993)


   I guess the trick is to make your grass green and not worry about what
your neighbors are doing.
-- Hung Diep


   We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion
that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past,
or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong. 
-- Karl Popper, philosopher and a professor (1902-1994)


   One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the
right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right
moment. 
-- Hart Crane, poet (1899-1932)


   If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
-- Edward Hopper, painter (1882-1967)


   No battle is ever won, he said. They are not even fought. The field
only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an
illusion of philosophers and fools. 
-- William Faulkner, novelist (1897-1962)


   I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not
proving things to be true but proving them to be false. 
-- Lawrence M. Krauss, theoretical physicist (b. 1954)


   Those who hate and fight must stop themselves - otherwise it is not
stopped.
-- Spock, Star Trek, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown


   I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun. 
-- Katharine Hepburn, actress (1907-2003)


   There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
-- Beatles (John Lennon), 1967


   "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems
pointless." 
-- Steven Weinberg, physicist


   Just do good and we'll find a meeting point.
-- Pope Francis, 2018-04-18, https://www.yahoo.com/news/heartsick-boy-asks-atheist-dad-193340202.html


   1. Live and let live.
2. Be giving of yourself to others.
3. Proceed calmly in life. 
4. A healthy sense of leisure. 
5. Sundays should be holidays. 
6. Find innovative ways to create dignified jobs for young people. 
7. Respect and take care of nature. 
8. Stop being negative. 
9. Don't proselytise; respect others beliefs. 
10. Work for peace.
-- Ten tips for a happy life, Pope Francis, 2014-07-27 in __Viva__


   Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity
to see things differently and to change his point of view. 
-- Paul Klee, painter (1879-1940)


   I believe that life can go on forever. It takes a million years to
evolve a new species, ten million for a new genus, one hundred million
for a class, a billion for a phylum - and that's usually as far as
your imagination goes. In a billion years, it seems, intelligent life
might be as different from humans as humans are from insects. But what
would happen in another ten billion years? It's utterly impossible to
conceive of ourselves changing as drastically as that, over and over
again. All you can say is, on that kind of time scale the material
form that life would take is completely open. To change from a human
being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it's the kind of change
you'd expect over billions of years. 
-- Freeman Dyson, physicist (b. 1923)


   "One day I woke up and it dawned on me I had no control over what's
going on in my life. I have control over how it affects me. I started
to better myself as a person rather than let my situation be the
end-all. I practiced it and I practiced it and it became a little
easier."
-- Brian Banks, Football Player, reported by Eric Adelson on 2015-01-27, http://sports.yahoo.com/news/exonerated-of-rape--brian-banks-realizing-nfl-dream-%E2%80%93-in-different-capacity-005927279-nfl.html


   There are years that ask questions and years that answer. 
-- Zora Neale Hurston, folklorist and writer (7 Jan 1891-1960)


   "I'm prouder of who I am, than what I am. That need explaining?"
-- Ron Bishop writing for Ed Vail on __Gunsmoke__, "Kiowa", 1970-02-16


   Literature encourages tolerance - bigots and fanatics seldom have any
use for the arts, because they're so preoccupied with their beliefs
and actions that they can't see them also as possibilities. 
-- Northrop Frye, writer and critic (14 Jul 1912-1991)


   We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses.
-- Lewis Thomas, physician and author (1913-1993)


   Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense.
-- e e cummings, poet (1894-1962)


   The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it. 
-- George Marshall, US Army Chief, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Nobel laureate (1880-1959)


   NSFW:
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools,
and those who dare not, are slaves. 
-- Lord Byron, poet (22 Jan 1788-1824)


   The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. 
-- Havelock Ellis, physician, writer, and social reformer (2 Feb 1859-1939)


   It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much
doing nothing, really doing nothing. 
-- Gertrude Stein, novelist, poet, and playwright (3 Feb 1874-1946)


   The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent
for luck. 
-- Hector Berlioz, composer (1803-1869)


   The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the
surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90
million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some
indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
-- Douglas Adams, author (11 Mar 1952-2001)


   I am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my
computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take
me a good ten seconds to do by hand.
-- Douglas Adams, author (11 Mar 1952-2001)


   Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they
take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least
something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of
feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was
torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.
-- T.S. Eliot


   The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people
is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average
intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course
by bitter experience. 
-- W.E.B. Du Bois, educator, civil rights activist, and writer (23 Feb 1868-1963)


   We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of
millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health,
the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can
[and] do read worthwhile books.
-- W.E.B. Du Bois, educator, civil rights activist, and writer (23 Feb 1868-1963)


   A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by
its publication as decisively severed from its author as in
parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means"
thereafter, perforce, - both grammatically and actually, - whatever
meaning this or that reader gets out of it. 
-- James Branch Cabell, novelist, essayist, critic (14 Apr 1879-1958)


   Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other, 
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight? 
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost.
-- Henry Scott Holland (1847 - 1918), Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford


   I was sixteen years old when the first World War broke out, and I
lived at that time in Hungary. From reading the newspapers in Hungary,
it would have appeared that, whatever Austria and Germany did was
right and whatever England, France, Russia, or America did was wrong.
A good case could be made out for this general thesis, in almost every
single instance. It would have been difficult for me to prove, in any
single instance, that the newspapers were wrong, but somehow, it
seemed to me unlikely that the two nations located in the center of
Europe should be invariably right, and that all the other nations
should be invariably wrong. History, I reasoned, would hardly operate
in such a peculiar fashion, and it didn't take long until I began to
hold views which were diametrically opposed to those held by the
majority of my schoolmates. ... Even in times of war, you can see
current events in their historical perspective, provided that your
passion for the truth prevails over your bias in favor of your own
nation.
-- Leo Szilard, physicist (11 Feb 1898-1964)


   Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's
captain has to avoid a shipwreck. 
-- Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (5 Aug 1850-1893)


   I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming
to my own taste. 
-- Marcel Duchamp, artist (28 Jul 1887-1968)


   Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is
not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead. 
-- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961)


   The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of
the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly. 
-- Ogden Nash, poet (19 Aug 1902-1971)


   Kasme Waade Pyaar Wafaa Sab
Baatein Hain Baato Ka Kya
Koyi Kisi Ka Nahi Ye Jhoothhe
Naate Hain Naato Ka Kya
-- Indeevar, lyricist (sung by Manna Dey in __Upkaar__)


   Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I
can appreciate persistence. 
-- Hal Borland, author and journalist (14 May 1900-1978)


   I want to thank my own family, my wife Regina, and my son Harry. Thank 
you. Look at that kid! Just seriously, thank you for being my family.
I love you both. And really, nothing else matters, does it? 
-- David Letterman, last show on 2015-05-20


   Compassion is not weakness and concern for the unfortunate is not
socialism. 
-- Hubert Humphrey, US Vice President (27 May 1911-1978)


   I painted this because I felt like the play was about life, you know?
And life is full of color. And we each get to come along and we add
our own color to the painting, you know? And even though it's not very
big, the painting, you sort of have to figure that it goes on forever,
you know, in each direction. So, like, to infinity, you know? Cause
that's kind of like life, right? 
And it's really crazy, if you think about it, isn't it, that a hundred
years ago, some guy that I never met came to this country with a
suitcase. He has a son, who has a son, who has me. So, at first, when
I was painting, I was thinking, you know, maybe up here, that was that
guy's part of the painting and then, you know, down here, that's my
part of the painting. And then I started to think, well, what if were
all in the painting, everywhere? 
And what if we're in the painting before we're born? What if we're in
it after we die? And these colors that we keep adding, what if they
just keep getting added on top of one another, until eventually we're
not even different colors anymore? 
We're just one thing. One painting. I mean, my dad is not with us
anymore. He's not alive, but he's with us. He's with me every day. It
all just sort of fits somehow. And even if you don't understand how
yet, people will die in our lives, people that we love. In the future.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe years from now. I mean, it's kind of beautiful,
right, if you think about it, the fact that just because someone dies,
just because you can't see them or talk to them anymore, it doesn't
mean they're not still in the painting. I think maybe that's the point
of the whole thing. 
There's no dying. There's no you or me or them. It's just us.
And this sloppy, wild, colorful, magical thing that has no beginning,
no end... that's right here. I think it's us.
-- Joe Lawson, writing for Kevin, __This Is Us__, "The Game Plan"


   "Put simply, I am a widow and the mother of four children, my youngest
in high school, and I will not relent to hatred. Instead, I will
battle it with whimsy and beauty and laughter and love, wrapped around
my home, yard, and family."
-- Julie Baker, GoFundMe campaign, http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2015/06/18/Anonymous-complaint-calls-Baltimore-yard-relentlessly-gay/5961434648702/


   Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the
waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. 
-- Ben Okri, poet and novelist (b. 15 Mar 1959)


   When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left. 
-- Langston Hughes, poet and novelist (1 Feb 1902-1967)


   Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon
Pal do pal meri kahaani hai
Pal do pal meri hasti hai
Pal do pal meri jawaani hai
[I am but a poet for a moment or two;
My story will be over in a moment or two,
My being is for a moment or two,
My youth is for a moment or two.]
Mujhse pehle kitne shaayar
Aaye aur aakar chale gaye
Kuchh aahein bharkar laut gaye
Kuchh naghme gaakar chale gaye
Woh bhi ek pal ka kissa thhey
Main bhi ek pal ka kissa hoon
Kal tumse juda ho jaaoonga
Woh aaj tumhaara hissa hoon
Main pal do pal ka shayyar hoon.
[Many poets came before me,
They came and went away.
Some lamented and returned filled with sighs,
some sang songs before going away.
They were also a story for a moment in time;
I too am a story for a moment in time.
Tomorrow I will be separated from you,
But for today, I'm a part of you.
I am a poet only of a moment or two.]
Kal aur aayenge nagmon ki,
Khilti kaliya chunne waale
Mujhse behtar kehne waale,
Tumse behtar sunne waale
Kal koi mujhko yaad kare
Kyoon koi mujhko yaad kare
Mashroof zamaana mere liye
Kyoon waqt apna barbaad kare
Main pal do pal ka shayyar hoon.
[Tomorrow more (poets) will come,
To pick the freshly bloomed blossoms of songs.
There will be better storytellers than me,
And better listeners than you.
Tomorrow, someone might remember me;
But why should anyone remember me?
For my sake, why should this busy world
Waste its precious time?
I'm a poet only for a moment or two.]
-- Sahir Ludhianvi, __Kabhi Kabhi__, Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon


   Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai
Ke jaise tujhko banaaya gaya hai mere liye - 2
Tu ab se pehle sitaaron mein bas rahi thi kahin - 2
Tujhe zameen pe bulaaya gaya hai mere liye - 2
Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai
Ke yeh badan yeh nigaahen meri amaanat hai - 2
Yeh gesuon ki ghani chhaaon hai meri khaatir
Yeh hont aur yeh baahein meri amaanat hai - 2
Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai
Ke jaise bajti hai shehnaaiyaan si raahon mein - 2
uhaag raat hai, ghoonghat utha raha hoon main
Simat rahi hai tu sharmaake apni baahon mein - 2
Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai
Ke jaise tu mujhe chaahegi umr bhar yunhi
Uthegi meri taraf pyaar ki nazar yunhi
Main jaanta hoon ke tu gair hai magar yunhi - 2
Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai
[Sometimes the thought comes into my heart
That you were made just for me.
As though you were living somewhere among the stars til now,
And you were called to the earth just for me.
Sometimes the thought comes into my heart
That this body and these eyes are my sanctuary,
And that the shadows of this thick hair are for me alone,
And these lips and these arms belong to me.
Sometimes the thought comes into my heart
As if wedding music is being played in the streets,
It is our wedding night, I am lifting your veil
ou shyly blush as I wrap you in my arms.
Sometimes the thought comes into my heart
That you will love me for a lifetime just like this.
That you will raise a loving glance to me always just like this,
I know you are promised to another, and yet
Sometimes the thought comes into my heart.]
-- Sahir Ludhianvi, __Kabhi Kabhi__, Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon


   Ek pyar ka nagma hai, maujon ki rawani hai
Zindagi aur kuch bhi nahi teri meri kahani hai
Ek pyar ka nagma hai
Kuch paakar khona hai, kuch khokar paana hai
Jeevan ka matlab toh aana aur jaana hai
Do pal ke jeevan se ek umar churani hai
Zindagi aur kuch bhi nahi teri meri kahani hai
Ek pyar ka nagma hai
[It's a song of love, it's a flow of ecstasy
Life is nothing but a story about you and me
It's a song of love
We find some things and then lose them, some things we lose and then find
The meaning of life is coming and going
We have to steal a lifetime from this short life
Life is nothing but a story about you and me
It's a song of love]
-- Santosh Anand, __Shor__, Ek pyar ka nagma hai


   All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
-- Henry Ward Beecher, preacher, and writer (1813-1887)


   I feel fairly certain that my hatred harms me more than the people
whom I hate. 
-- Max Frisch, architect, playwright, and novelist (15 May 1911-1991)


   Science tends to be created as it is needed. "We are not that much
smarter than each other," [Feynman] said.
-- James Gleick and Richard P. Feynman in __Genius__


   Peace of mind is the most important prerequisite for creative work.
-- Richard P. Feynman in Stephen Wolfram's https://backchannel.com/my-time-with-richard-feynman-8e15ef968e75#.q2l758rnc


   Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Doc, you oughta be in bed, what the hell you doin' this for anyway?
Doc Holliday: Wyatt Earp is my friend.
Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Hell, I got lots of friends.
Doc Holliday: I don't.
-- Kevin Jarre writing in __Tombstone__ (1993)


   If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written
yet, then you must write it. 
-- Toni Morrison, novelist, editor, professor, Nobel laureate (b. 18 Feb 1931)


   It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I
gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I
paid? 
-- Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)


   How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before
starting to improve the world. 
-- Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)


   No one has ever become poor by giving. 
-- Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)


   I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists
alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen,
otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago!
There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder,
and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change,
wars will be waged...
-- Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)


   The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee, historian (14 Apr 1889-1975)


   "Maybe we find our path by walking."
-- Maya Angelou quoted by Tavis Smiley in his book, __My Journey with Maya__ http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2015/04/maya_angelou_play_in_developme.html (dropped [it] at the end of the quote)


   When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
-- Maya Angelou


   Kindness is always fashionable, and always welcome. 
-- Amelia Barr, novelist (29 Mar 1831-1919)


   To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature. 
-- Auguste Rodin, sculptor (12 Nov 1840-1917)


   What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give. 
-- P.D. James, novelist (3 Aug 1920-2014)


   We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called
memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams. 
-- Jeremy Irons, actor (b. 19 Sep 1948)


   If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable
impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a
favorable impression of himself. 
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, and philosopher (21 Oct 1772-1834)


   "He did the work and walks alone toward the sunset; and, here I am,
covered in all the glory, which rightfully should be his!"
-- Richard P. Feynman talking about Baron Ernst Carl Gerlach Sutckelberg at his 1965 CERN Lecture after winning the Nobel Prize: http://aste.li/quasar/stueckelberg.html


   Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   Good books don't give up all their secrets at once. 
-- Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947)


   If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at
least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-- Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (31 Mar 1596-1650)


   A poor idea well written is more likely to be accepted than a good
idea poorly written. 
-- Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (2 Jan 1920-1992)


   It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a
sense of humor. 
-- Max Eastman, journalist and poet (4 Jan 1883-1969)


   Who is content with nothing possesses all things. 
-- Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, poet (1 Nov 1636-1711)


   Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace,
The soul that knows it not, knows no release,
From little things;
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
-- Amelia Earhart, aviator (24 Jul 1897-1937)


   Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I
have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's
time - when the United States is a service and information economy;
when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to
other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of
a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp
the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own
agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching
our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical
faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good
and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into
superstition and darkness. 
-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and author (1934-1996)


   "America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and
reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the
plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with
their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem."
-- John F. Kennedy, speech scheduled for Dallas on Nov 22, 1963, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/10/is-technology-bringing-history-to-life-or-distorting-it/


   The mind is the effect, not the cause. 
-- Daniel Dennett, philosopher, writer, and professor (b. 28 Mar 1942)


   At the beach, life is different. A day moves not from hour to hour but
leaps from mood to moment. We go with the currents, plan around the
tides, follow the sun. 
-- Sandy Gingras in __How to Live At the Beach__


   Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the
waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. 
-- Ben Okri, poet and novelist (b. 15 Mar 1959)


   When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith


   The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given
me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty,
and Truth. 
-- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (14 Mar 1879-1955)


   If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to
worry about the answers. 
-- Thomas Pynchon, novelist (b. 8 May 1937)


   All of life is a foreign country. 
-- Jack Kerouac, author (12 Mar 1922-1969)


   The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes.  Let the
reader catch his own breath.
-- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart, Journalist (1904 - 1983)


   Acceptance testing:
An unsuccessful attempt to find bugs.
-- Anonymous


   As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As
an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful,
and that the fear of telling the truth - whatever the truth may be -
that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life. 
-- June Jordan, writer, teacher, and activist (9 Jul 1936-2002)


   There's nothing very mysterious about you, except that
nobody really knows your origin, purpose, or destination.
-- Anonymous


   Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel
with ourselves we make poetry. 
-- William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (13 Jun 1865-1939)


   ___====-_  _-====___
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-#################\\  / `' \  //#################- 
-###################\\/  ()  \//###################-
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|/ |#/\#/\#/\/  \#/\##|  \()/  |##/\#/  \/\#/\#/\#| \|
`  |/  V  V  `   V  )||  |()|  ||(  V   '  V /\  \|  '
`   `  `      `  / |  |()|  | \  '      '<||>  '
(  |  |()|  |  )\        /|/
__\ |__|()|__| /__\______/|/
(vvv(vvvv)(vvvv)vvv)______|/


   Best of luck all the time!
-- Prof. Mahinder S. Sethi (b. 1927)


   When I die, I want to be buried in Sproul Plaza with the following
inscribed on the tile above my grave: "Here lies Slotty... let the
students walk over him in death as they did in life."
-- Prof. William Bradley Slottman, UC Berkeley, 1925-1995


   Come, live in my heart and pay no rent. 
-- Samuel Lover ("Ben Trovato"), songwriter, composer, novelist, and artist (24 Feb 1797-1868)


   Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted. 
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (27 Feb 1807-1882)


   I think marrying the right person is important. I think lots of
kissing hello and goodbye is really a critical detail to daily life.
-- Julia Roberts, actor, on __The View__ on 2023-12-04


   I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was
war?" 
-- Eve Merriam, poet and writer (19 Jul 1916-1992)


   For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria
heard. 
-- Rita Dove, poet (b. 28 Aug 1952)


   When you think you have all the answers, life changes the questions.
-- Tony Fahkry, author on https://www.tonyfahkry.com/think-answers-life-changes-questions/


   There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to  
rise in the world.
-- Lady Marguerite Blessington, writer (8 Jun 1789-1849)


   One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly
possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community
of thought, a rivalry of aim.
-- Henry Brook Adams, historian (1838 - 1918)


   The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they
haven't attempted to contact us. 
-- Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (b. 5 Jul 1958)


   Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both
flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.
-- Aleksandr Pushkin, poet, novelist, and playwright (6 Jun 1799-1837)


   The one thing that you need to do is practice them... You've got to
think about something and do it. Think about it and do it. Think about
it and do it. Until you get to the point of being able to do it
without even thinking about it.
-- Tony David Jeffries, Professional Boxer (b. 1985), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Ow1iiEgZo&list=LL&t=67s


   Gannon: Time to think is not a good thing as an athlete.
Peszek: No, you really want to focus on your mental choreography is
what they call it. That basically means you say the same things to
yourself in your head throughout the beam routine in order for no
negative thoughts to creep in.
On WebPage: "In order to cultivate your inner voice, she advises that
you should try to remember what you were thinking when you did a skill
right. Whatever you were thinking that helped you nail that skill,
should become part of your routine's mental choreography."
-- Samantha Peszek, American former artistic gymnast (b. 1991), 2024-08-01: Gymnastics, Swimming: Primetime in Paris with Terry Gannon commenting on the routine of Italy's Alice D'Amato on NBC and https://gymnasticshq.com/olympian-samantha-peszek-shares-11-tips-to-help-you-become-a-better-gymnast/


   Some are guilty, but all are responsible. 
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel, rabbi and professor (11 Jan 1907-1972)


   The vast majority of information is not truth. A key misconception,
especially in places like Silicon Valley, is to equate information
with truth. Most information is junk. The truth is a very rare and
costly and precious sub-kind of information because, you know, to
write truthful story you need to invest a lot of time and effort and
money in research and fact-checking whereas fiction is very very
cheap.
-- Yuval Noah Harari, Historian, on __Real Time with Bill Maher__, S22E29, 2024-09-27


   NSFW:
"Our bodies are built to die," she says. "They have built-in mechanisms
like shutting down the hunger and thirst mechanism so you don't feel
hungry and thirsty at the end of life. Then your calcium levels rise
usually, so then you feel really sleepy. People always think it's this
big, painful, awful event, but for the most part the actual dying
process is peaceful and the body knows how to do it."
My wife recently passed in home hospice and this is exactly the way it
was for her. She pretty much stopped eating and drinking a couple of
weeks before and would only sip and pick at her food because I asked
her too. She started sleeping 22-23 hours a day and after a week or
so, simply forgot to wake up. I held her hand when she left me like I
promised her I would do.
-- Russell (@Russell9949) on Yahoo, __Talk about death, but live your life: What people working in end-of-life care have learned__, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/talk-death-live-life-people-180514109.html


   human wandering through the zoo
what do your cousins think of you. 
-- Don Marquis, humorist and poet (29 Jul 1878-1937)


   In order for me to write poetry that isn't political 
I must listen to the birds 
and in order to hear the birds 
the warplanes must be silent. 
-- Marwan Makhoul, poet (b. 2 Jul 1979)


   We don't practice until we hit perfection, we practice until we can't
get it wrong.
-- With apologies to George W. Loomis, school superintendent, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/29/get-it-right/


   It may sound trite, but using the weapons of the enemy, no matter how
good one's intentions, makes one the enemy. 
-- Charles de Lint, writer and folk musician (b. 22 Dec 1951)


   I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not
looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea.
Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week,
if there is anything to be got by it. 
-- Charles Dickens, novelist (7 Feb 1812-1870)


   Isn't poetry wonderful, that the writer may garner inspiration and
roll with intention, yet we can colour with our own interpretation. I
like yours!
-- Diana De Van, Facebook user, in response to a different interpretation of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night" as performed by Michael Sheen at the National Theatre https://fb.watch/d6Ngvk5dMj/


   Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)


   When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of
something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.
-- Baltasar Gracian, writer and philosopher (8 Jan 1601-1658)


   What the Caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a
butterfly. 
-- Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)


   Your voice dries up if you don't use it. 
-- Patti Page, singer (8 Nov 1927-2013)


   Why are numbers beautiful? It's like asking why is Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony beautiful. If you don't see why, someone can't tell you. I
know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.
-- Paul Erdos, mathematician (26 Mar 1913-1996)


   It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of
greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt
increases. 
-- Johan Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (10 Nov 1759-1805)


   Flattery won't hurt you if you don't swallow it. 
-- Kin Hubbard, humorist (1 Sep 1868-1930)


   Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take
anyone's B.S. too seriously, especially your own. 
-- Robert Anton Wilson, novelist (18 Jan 1932-2007)


   It's that there is no such thing as a person so brilliant that they're
not made better by having people around them who can challenge their
ideas and test them and stop them from making mistakes in the worst
case. That person does not exist.
-- Gautam Mukunda, Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership


   A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. 
-- Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (29 Sep 1547-1616)


   Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
-- Mike Tyson (Michael Gerard Tyson) (1966 - ), American professional boxer, https://web.archive.org/web/20190819164329/https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fl-xpm-2012-11-09-sfl-mike-tyson-explains-one-of-his-most-famous-quotes-20121109-story.html


   Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule
they make many others die with them, often before them, at times
instead of them. 
-- Umberto Eco, philosopher and novelist (5 Jan 1932-2016)


   Jahan hamare sapne poore hote hain wahan inka struggle shuru hota hai
[Where our dreams are fulfilled is where their struggle begins]
-- Siddhant Chaturvedi, actor/rapper on Newcomers Round Table hosted by Indian film critic Rajeev Masand, 2020 (https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/entertainment-news-their-struggle-begins-where-our-dreams-are-fulfilled-siddhant-chaturvedis-reply-to-ananya-panday-on-nepotism/345022), based on the original saying: "jahan par tumhari soch khatam hoti hai wahan se hamari soch shuru hoti hai"


   A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not
necessarily in that order. 
-- Jean-Luc Godard, film director (b. 3 Dec 1930)


   I've bumbled my way through my life with a growing realization that
all the plans you have for your life are dependent on the guy driving
a car behind you or in front of you. The accidents that you have no
control over, whether they're physical, like falling down a flight of
stairs, or emotional, like the person you love the most doesn't love
you - and everything in between - you have no control over. So you may
think you're like, "I'm going to control. I'm going to choose that
motion picture," or go onstage choosing elements of your career,
thinking you're making a career move. It has nothing to do with
reality at all.
...
I was asked to help raise funds with the Red Cross. I had to be at
Mar-a-Lago Saturday night, and Leonard's funeral was Sunday morning. I
couldn't make both. I chose the charity. It just occurred to me:
Leonard died. They got a statue up. It's not going to last. Say it
lasts 50 years, 100. [Someone will say], "Who is that Leonard Nimoy?
Tear the statue down, put somebody else up." But what you can't erase
is helping somebody or something. That has its own energy and
reverberation. That person got help - and then is able to help
somebody else. You've continued an action that has no boundaries.
That's what a good deed does
-- William Shatner, Canadian Actor (b. 1931), William Shatner on His Biggest 'Star Trek' Regret - and Why He Cried With Bezos https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/william-shatner-biggest-star-trek-052436967.html


   There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human
existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book. 
-- Carson McCullers, writer (19 Feb 1917-1967)


   Through others, we become ourselves. 
-- Lev Vygotsky, psychologist (17 Nov 1896-1934)


   Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden
age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and
decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be
disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. 
-- Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman (25 Oct 1800-1859)


   The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is. 
-- Nadine Gordimer, novelist, Nobel laureate (20 Nov 1923-2014)


   Art is the elimination of the unnecessary. 
-- Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor (25 Oct 1881-1973)


   I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad
that's ever happened to me has taught me compassion. 
-- Ellen DeGeneres, comedian (b. 26 Jan 1958)


   Perseverance. Strength. It's all a mental game. I put it in my back
pocket now. I know how to deal with pain. It's all mind. It's all in
the mind, if you can sift through the fog of it all. I am very blessed.
-- Jeremy Renner, actor (b. 1971), after near-fatal accident last January, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jeremy-renner-reveals-life-changed-172017470.html


   Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness
in another. 
-- Walter Savage Landor (30 Jan 1775-1864)


   Fatalism is the lazy man's way of accepting the inevitable. 
-- Natalie Clifford Barney, poet, playwright, and novelist (31 Oct 1876-1972)


   The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of
the oppressed. 
-- Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist (18 Dec 1946-1977)


   I have noticed that when chickens quit quarreling over their food they
often find that there is enough for all of them I wonder if it might
not be the same with the human race. 
-- Don Marquis, humorist and poet (29 Jul 1878-1937)


   If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
-- Edward Hopper, painter (22 Jul 1882-1967)


   Mistakes are part of the dues that one pays for a full life. 
-- Sophia Loren, actor and singer (b. 20 Sep 1934)


   Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts
on the unthinking. 
-- John Maynard Keynes, economist (5 Jun 1883-1946)


   Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never
begun. 
-- Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894)


   The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the
other ages you've been. 
-- Madeleine L'Engle, writer (29 Nov 1918-2007)


   ...[D]on't ask why. It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.
-- Billie Joe Armstrong, lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter for Green Day, __Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)__


   You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove.
-- Timothy Leary, psychologist (1920 - 1996)


   That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man
begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity
with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of
disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing,
takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of
dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so
timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win
or lose. 
-- Learned Hand, jurist (27 Jan 1872-1961)


   Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and
believe? 
-- Scott Turow, author and lawyer (b. 12 Apr 1949)


   Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring
the truth back. 
-- Gore Vidal, writer (3 Oct 1925-2012)


   "My mother had a wonderful approach to death," White said. "She always
thought of it as  she said, 'We know we have managed to find out
almost anything that exists, but nobody knows ... what happens at that
moment when it's over.' "
She continued: "And she said, 'It's the one secret that we don't
know.' So whenever we would lose somebody very close and very dear,
she would always say, 'Well, now he knows the secret.' And it took the
curse off of it somehow."
-- Betty White (1922 - 2021), https://people.com/tv/how-betty-white-viewed-the-aging-process-and-had-no-fear-of-the-secret-of-death/


   My way of joking is to tell the truth.  That's the funniest joke in
the world.
-- Muhammad Ali


   Words, when written, crystallize history; their very structure gives
permanence to the unchangeable past. 
-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)


   Forgetfulness, n.:
A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for
their destitution of conscience.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), Journalist


   There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger
price for living a lie. 
-- Cornel West, author and philosopher (b. 2 Jun 1953)


   This habit of forming opinions, and acting upon them without evidence,
is one of the most immoral habits of the mind. ... As our opinions are
the fathers of our actions, to be indifferent about the evidence of
our opinions is to be indifferent about the consequences of our
actions. 
-- James Mill, philosopher (6 Apr 1773-1836)


   We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen
of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut." 
-- Lawrence Lessig, professor and activist (b. 3 Jun 1961)


   NSFW:
Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction. 
-- Natalie Clifford Barney, poet, playwright, and novelist (31 Oct 1876-1972)


   NSFW:
When the Judgment Day comes civilization will have an alibi, "I never
took a human life, I only sold the fellow the gun to take it with."
-- Will Rogers, humorist (4 Nov 1879-1935)


   The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and
deeds left undone. 
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (14 Jun 1811-1896)


   In its original literal sense, "moral relativism" is simply moral
complexity. That is, anyone who agrees that stealing a loaf of bread
to feed one's children is not the moral equivalent of, say,
shoplifting a dress for the fun of it, is a relativist of sorts. But
in recent years, conservatives bent on reinstating an essentially
religious vocabulary of absolute good and evil as the only legitimate
framework for discussing social values have redefined "relative" as
"arbitrary". 
-- Ellen Jane Willis, writer (14 Dec 1941-2006)


   A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the
distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its
members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability.
Otherwise, they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are
caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive.
-- John Dewey, philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (20 Oct 1859-1952)


   If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national
existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and
Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and
superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other. 
-- Ulysses S. Grant, military commander, 18th US President (27 Apr 1822-1885)


   NSFW:
"It's more like you want the power to force your religious beliefs
onto everyone else, and because you don't have that power, you feel
like you're being silenced. But you're not. You're just gonna have to
learn to coexist with all of us. And I'm sure it's not that hard."
-- Andrew Hartzler, in response to his aunt, Rep. Vicky Hartzler, crying while voting against Respect for Marriage Act, https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewhartzler/video/7175122363812564266 and https://www.yahoo.com/news/gay-nephew-lawmaker-cried-while-184822392.html


   I don't understand it, I really don't, and I never will. But
sometimes, comedy is really the only way forward through tragedy. 
-- Peter Michael Davidson, comedian, actor, and writer (b. 1993), 2023-10-14, premiere of Saturday Night Live


   I have always felt comedy and tragedy are roommates, he wrote. If you
look up comedy and tragedy, you will find a very old picture of two
masks. One mask is tragedy. It looks like it's crying. The other mask
is comedy. It looks like its laughing. Nowadays, we would say, "How
tasteless and insensitive." A comedy mask is laughing at a tragedy
mask.
-- Gilbert Gottfried, comedian (1955 - 2022), https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/comedian-gilbert-gottfried-dies-67-195413201.html but not a historical understanding of the masks, "Thalia and Melpomene", https://theaterlove.com/comedy-tragedy-masks/


   It's strange for me when they say like, "How could you do comedy in
this tragic situation?" Well, it's because comedy and tragedy are just
very strange roommates. They're very uncomfortable roommates. They
live together and don't always get along. There's no reason for the
two of them to be living together. But they just do. And so, if
there's tragedy, it will be followed by comedy. It always will be.
-- Gilbert Gottfried, comedian (1955 - 2022), Clip utilized on __The Daily Show__ Moment of Zen on 2022-04-13, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4916386035145491


   There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to
understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to
see the stars in broad daylight. 
-- Vaclav Havel, writer, Czech Republic president (5 Oct 1936-2011)


   Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you
to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, essayist, and poet (b. 8 Apr 1955)


   NSFW:
I said to them, "You laughed at the jokes about famine, Aids, and
cancer. You knew I was joking there, didn't you?" I'm playing the idiot.
That's what irony is. It's the opposite of what you actually think.
I want people to stop saying "That joke is offensive." You should say
you found it offensive because you've got to own the emotion. That's
all it is. It's an emotion, an opinion. As a comedian, you can't
please everyone. If you try you'll end up pleasing no one and saying
nothing.
What's the point? Why should I expect everyone in the world to get my
joke? That's arrogant. I don't want to go so low and obvious and
anodyne that everyone gets it. Now I challenge people to tell me a joke
that's not offensive and I can find something offensive in it. "Why
did the chicken cross the road?" Fuck you, my chicken died yesterday.
He applies the same principle to joking about other forms of
prejudice. 'You can make jokes about race without being racist. The
people who've had to endure real racism throughout their lives are the
ones being hurt, because now the term "racist" is meaningless. It went
from someone who was filled with vitriol and hate and oppressed
particular races to meaning a bloke who didn't let you park where you
want. The word "Nazi" used to mean someone who wanted to take people
to a concentration camp. Now it means fighting for someone's right to
say whatever they like.'
The counter-argument to Ricky's view that anything can be a subject
for comedy is that a comic must always 'punch up', and that by joking
about trans or race issues, Ricky is taking aim at the marginalised.
'There are lots of things wrong with that. Who decides what's punching
up and punching down? I have a routine [in his new stand-up tour,
Supernature] about these comedians writing articles in the Guardian,
trying to set the rules of comedy, insisting that we should never
punch down. And I say sometimes you've got to punch down. Like if
you're beating up a disabled toddler.'
-- Ricky Dene Gervais (b. 1961), English comedian, actor, director, and writer, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ricky-gervais-why-i-ll-never-apologise-for-my-jokes


   The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that
we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet
imagined. 
-- John N. Bahcall, astrophysicist (30 Dec 1935-2005)


   "You see, according to American tort law, there is something called
'the reasonable person standard.' It says that a joke is clearly not
defamation if it's clearly a joke to a reasonable person. And the
Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that most Americans are reasonable
and of average intelligence." 
I go, "Sam, I don't know how the math works here, but I think the
average American has below-average intelligence." 
"That is not what the court thinks. They think more of people. And
frankly, my friend, so should you." 
I go, "Sam, it would be great to live in that world. Because it's the
kind of world I want to live in." I want to perform for reasonable
people. 
I want to be able to switch between satire and sincerity and trust
that you know the difference. Trust that you won't take me out of
context. Everything here tonight is built on trust. Why do you think
I'm performing in this LED skate park? I look ridiculous! Everything
here is built on trust. You trust me, I trust you. That's why I locked
up your phones. I had to! I don't know you! But I know you. And
there's so many things that I think and believe, but I'm too afraid to
say. But I have to trust you.
-- Hasan Minhaj (b. 1985), American comedian and commentator, __The King's Jester__


   Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with
invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism
is frame-flipping - positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So
the gay do not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children
into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace; they
actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually
victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against
hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible bigotry, one
that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead to change the
subject and straw man. 
-- Ta-Nehisi Coates, writer and journalist


   It's said that "power corrupts", but actually it's more true that
power attracts the corruptible. 
-- David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 Oct 1950)


   One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who
was a child at the time - asked me, "Daddy, why are you writing so
fast?" And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out!"
-- Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)


   I don't have to do nothin' but stay black and die.
-- Michael Schiffer, writing for Joe Louis Clark, __Lean on Me__ (1989)


   What if I were very, very sad
And all I did was smile?
I wonder after a while
What might become of my sadness?
What if I were very, very angry,
And all I did was sit
And never think about it?
What might become of my anger?
-- Mister Rogers, Fred McFeely Rogers (1928 - 2003)


   Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast
quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the
crowning reward of art. 
-- Frederic Chopin, pianist and composer (1 Mar 1810-1849)


   Jobs are like going to church: it's nice once or twice a year to sing
along and eat something and all that, but unless you really believe
there's something holy going on, it gets to be a drag going in every
single week. 
-- Thomas Michael Disch, science fiction author and poet (2 Feb 1940-2008)


   Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. 
-- Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938)


   We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same
horizon. 
-- Konrad Adenauer, statesman (5 Jan 1876-1967)


   Once and for all 
the idea of glorious victories 
won by the glorious army 
must be wiped out.
Neither side is glorious.
On either side, they're just frightened men messing their pants 
and they all want the same thing.
Not to lie under the earth 
but to walk upon it 
without crutches. 
-- Peter Weiss writer, artist, and filmmaker (8 Nov 1916-1982)


   It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories,
put together well after the languages they define. The roots of
language are irrational and of a magical nature. 
-- Jorge Luis Borges, writer (24 Aug 1899-1986)


   Just as appetite comes by eating so work brings inspiration. 
-- Igor Stravinsky, composer (17 Jun 1882-1971)


   Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary
evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less
evil. 
-- Sydney J. Harris, journalist (14 Sep 1917-1986)


   I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming
to my own taste. 
-- Marcel Duchamp, artist (28 Jul 1887-1968)


   To bear up under loss, to fight the bitterness of defeat and the
weakness of grief, to be victor over anger, to smile when tears are
close, to resist evil men and base instincts, to hate hate and to love
love, to go on when it would seem good to die, to seek ever after the
glory and the dream, to look up with unquenchable faith in something
evermore about to be, that is what any man can do, and so be great.
-- Zane Grey, author and dentist (31 Jan 1872-1939)


   Facing it - always facing it - that's the way to get through. Face it!
-- Conrad Joseph


   We read books to find out who we are. 
-- Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct 1929-2018)


   The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us
the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in
accumulating wealth. 
-- Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US president (4 Oct 1822-1893)


   The mark of the educated man is not in his boast that he has built his
mountain of facts and stood on the top of it, but in his admission
that there may be other peaks in the same range with men on the top of
them, and that, though their views of the landscape may be different
from his, they are nonetheless legitimate. 
-- E.J. Pratt, poet (4 Feb 1882-1964)


   Never go in search of love, go in search of life, and life will find
you the love you seek.
-- Atticus


   We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we
treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does
not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. 
-- Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (14 Jan 1875-1965)


   We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for
us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The
reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the
picture, is that our bodies are in the picture. Our bodies belong to
it. Not only my own body, but those of my friends, also of my dog and
cat and horse, and of all the other people and animals. And this is my
only means of communicating with them.
-- Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961)


   Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness,
consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of
eternal peace. 
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, US general and 34th president (14 Oct 1890-1969)


   We are a landscape of all we have seen. 
-- Isamu Noguchi, sculptor and architect (17 Nov 1904-1988)


   The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that
we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the
human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the
sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to
identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better
world and a safer world. 
-- Mohamed ElBaradei, diplomat, Nobel laureate (b. 17 Jun 1942)


   It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's
good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't
lost the things that money can't buy. 
-- George H. Lorimer, editor (6 Oct 1867-1937)


   Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history. 
-- Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), historian (10 Jan 1834-1902)


   War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it
is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together
in peace by killing each other's children. 
-- Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Nobel laureate (b. 1924)


   The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of
insulation against the present world and its disasters. 
-- Ross Macdonald, novelist (13 Dec 1915-1983)


   The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize
that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.
-- William Empson, literary critic and poet (27 Sep 1906-1984)


   Treat a program as a piece of literature, addressed to human beings
rather than to a computer.
-- Donald E. Knuth, Computer Scientist, in talking about his 1984 paper on __Literate Programming__, which is also the basis for Python Jupyter Notebooks, https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/lp.html


   Life has no meaning a priori. ... It is up to you to give it a
meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (21 Jun 1905-1980)


   We would often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world
understood all the motives which produced them. 
-- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, writer (15 Sep 1613-1680)


   "La mort, c'est un peu comme la connerie. Le mort, lui, il ne sait pas
qu'il est mort. Ce sont les autres qui sont tristes. Le con, c'est pareil."
[Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only
painful for others.
The same thing happens when you are stupid.]
-- Philippe Geluck, Belgian comedian, humorist, television writer and cartoonist, __Ma langue au chat__ (1995), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2016_January_15


   No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself, and
another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to
which may be the true.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, __The Scarlet Letter__, 1850.


   Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, 
I want to tie the two arms together, 
And walk out of the bank carrying time in bags.
-- Robert Bly, poet (b. 23 Dec 1926)


   I can and have sat down at a desk and opened the proper books; but I
cannot force my mind to consider and commit to memory what is written
there, because there are always things, notably music and personal
philosophizing, which I would rather do. I realize that everyone is
subject to aimless daydreaming; all minds wander once in awhile; but
mine is never at anchor.
-- Ken Leonard (1943 - 1979), letters found by Andrew Leonard, https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/summer-2021/letters-reveal-uncle-kens-forgotten-journey


   But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd.
-- _Measure for Measure_, William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (23 Apr 1564-1616)


   Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee. 
-- Margaret Courtney, poet (1822-1862)


   How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. 
-- Annie Dillard, author (b. 30 Apr 1945)


   Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   Don't just teach your children to read... Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   This is the most critical step.  Don't live in the bad  moment.  Once
finished, leave that moment behind.  That is a toxic experience.  
I left my friends and family in SC to head back home to DC to more
friends that love me. These are my points of origin and destination.
Don't get lost in transit.  There are people who love you on either
end.  Don't let a bad experience drive you away from your friends and
family.
I hugged my family and friends when I left.  I told them I love them.
I am traveling back home to get more hugs from my friends.  That is
all that matters to me.  Nothing else will ruin these moments for me.
Live for the good moments in life. 
-- Hung Diep, 2017-09-04 (reposted on 2021-09-04)


   NSFW:
We're all fucked. It helps to remember that.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   NSFW:
Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were
revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part,
and would be as perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after
ten thousand years of practice. There has never been a religion that
fulfills those conditions. 
-- Robert Blatchford, journalist and author (17 Mar 1851-1943)


   NSFW:
Political correctness is America's newest form of intolerance, and it
is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It
presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control
people's language with strict codes and rigid rules. I'm not sure
that's the way to fight discrimination. I'm not sure silencing people
or forcing them to alter their speech is the best method for solving
problems that go much deeper than speech.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   NSFW:
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get
what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for
themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they
don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of
critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people
capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That
doesn't help them. That's against their interests.
-- George Denis Patrick Carlin (1937 - 2008), American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, and author


   NSFW:
Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our
technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. 
-- Peter Singer, philosopher, professor of bioethics (b. 6 Jul 1946)


   NSFW:
In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a
tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other
tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle
of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not
include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to
America, and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as
a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today.
Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the
era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the
speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals
as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter,
and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in
expanding the circle of ethics. 
-- Peter Singer, philosopher and professor of bioethics (b. 6 Jul 1946)


   NSFW:
At times, Sister Ortiz said she continued to struggle with the
Christian ideal of forgiveness. "I leave that in God's hands," she
told NPR. "The fact that I'm a Catholic nun and I'm not able to
forgive, that makes me feel all the more guilty. I'm not sure what it
means to forgive."
-- Sister Dianna Ortiz (1958 - 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/dianna-ortiz-nun-who-told-of-brutal-abduction-by-guatemalan-military-dies-at-62/2021/02/19/932ac25a-713a-11eb-85fa-e0ccb3660358_story.html


   Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance
from the door. 
-- Saul Bellow, writer, Nobel laureate (10 Jun 1915-2005)


   A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy,
and be greedy when others are fearful.
-- Warren Buffett, The New York Times, Oct. 16, 2008, https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/warren-buffett-25-best-quotes-120224652.html


   Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding; lose a shred of
reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.
-- Warren Buffett, Buffett's Congressional testimony in 1991 regarding Salomon Brothers, https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/warren-buffett-25-best-quotes-120224652.html


   A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of
living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (8 Mar 1841-1935)


   The plural of the word anecdote is not data.
-- Kenneth Kernaghan and P. K. Kuruvilla, Canadian Political Scientists


   If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. 
I would relax. 
I would limber up. 
I would be sillier than I have been this trip. 
I know of very few things that I would take seriously.
I would be crazier. 
I would be less hygienic. 
I would take more chances. 
I would take more trips. 
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. 
I would burn up more gasoline. 
I would eat more ice cream and less bran.
-- Don Herold, humorist and cartoonist, 1935, __I'd Pick More Daisies__, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moments_(poem)


   It is up to us to produce better-quality movies.
-- Lloyd Kaufman, producer of "Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown" and "Another Yeti a Love Story: Life on the Streets"


   When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.
-- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (8 Feb 1819-1900)


   We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other. 
-- Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (6 Apr 1741-1794)


   There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter
and bleed.
-- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)


   "Well, I never did mind being lonesome if I was by myself. It's being
lonesome with somebody that scared me."
-- Robert Sabaroff, David Dortort (uncredited), and Fred Hamilton (uncredited) writing for Eric "Hoss" Cartwright, __King of the Mountain__, Bonanza


   More Americans identified with Hoss Cartwright than any other
character on TV, Pryor said. Was there ever problem for the Bonanza
star separating himself from Hoss?
"Well, not anymore,"  Blocker said. "There was a time that I did. The
second or third year (of Bonanza) I finally started to divorce myself
from him a bit."
"In the early days of the character, when I was trying to find him,"
Blocker said. "Of course, I got wrapped in him to the extent that I was
Hoss Cartwright all the time. But once I got him, once I knew the
fella and he was indelibly stamped, then I could leave him alone and
go get him when I wanted him."
-- Actor Dan Blocker (1928 - 1972) interview with Texas TV host Cactus Pryor (1923 - 2011) in 1965, https://outsider.com/news/entertainment/bonanza-hoss-actor-dan-blocker-divorce-himself-from-character/


   We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant
facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For
a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and
falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
-- John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (29 May 1917-1963)


   Scepticism that fails to account for evidence is no virtue.
-- Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society, https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-energy-secretary-rick-perry-075700673.html


   Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., American physician, poet, and polymath (August 29, 1809 - October 7, 1894)


   At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount
of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits
more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to
function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal
with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord
our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of
comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of
value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are
claiming special privileges which should not be granted. 
-- Eric Idle, comedian, actor, and author (b. 29 Mar 1943)


   I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of
reading about them, and of the bitter effects of staying at home with
all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be
a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few
allies our wars have left us. 
-- Lord Byron, poet (22 Jan 1788-1824)


   NSFW:
And the drugs, they paint out all the ugly parts, but they don't go
away. They just follow you around like shadows, and I can feel them
hanging off me, and I don't even know how I got here.
-- Natalie Chaidez, Ryan O'Nan, Mark Valadez, and Jorge A. Reyes, writing for Kelly Anne on Queen of the South, Season 3, Episode 10


   People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they
just make brief patterns in it. 
-- Terry Pratchett, novelist (Apr 28 1948-2015)


   The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more
complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with
extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by
voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not
underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net
of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the
earth. 
-- Henry Beston, naturalist and author (1 Jun 1888-1968)


   It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the
unessential.
-- Bruce Lee


   It's my rule never to lose my temper till it would be detrimental to
keep it. 
-- Sean O'Casey, playwright (30 Mar 1880-1964)


   NSFW:
The best theology is probably no theology; just love one another.
-- Charles Schulz, cartoonist (26 Nov 1922-2000)


   NSFW:
What I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to
be like bowling. It's a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that
has some virtues to it, that will have its own institutions and its
traditions and its own television programming, and that families will
enjoy together. It's not something I want to ban or that should affect
hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It
will be perfectly harmless as long as we don't elect our politicians
on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play
nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make
decrees about how biology works. 
-- PZ Myers, author, biology professor (b. 9 Mar 1957)


   When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character.
This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But
poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who
let people die, not those who struggle to live. 
-- Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author (b. 1978)


   I don't think that combat has ever been written about truthfully; it
has always been described in terms of bravery and cowardice. I won't
even accept these words as terms of human reference any more. And
anyway, hell, they don't even apply to what, in actual fact, modern
warfare has become. 
-- James Jones, novelist (6 Nov 1921-1977)


   You are the sky. Everything else - it's just the weather. 
-- Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun and author (b. 1936)


   I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun. 
-- Katharine Hepburn, actress (12 May 1907-2003)


   Testing can show the presence of errors, but not their absence.
-- Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (11 May 1930-2002)


   Mistakes are the portals of discovery. 
-- James Joyce, novelist (2 Feb 1882-1941)


   A man is known by the company he keeps. A company is known by the men
it keeps. 
-- Thomas J. Watson, businessman (17 Feb 1874-1956)


   But men may construe things after their fashion, clean from the
purpose of the things themselves.
-- William Shakespeare, __Julius Caesar__ 1623


   Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against
another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it
weren't for those who don't look like us or don't sound like us or
don't pray like we do, that's an old playbook. It's as old as time.
And in a healthy democracy it doesn't work. Our antibodies kick in,
and people of goodwill from across the political spectrum call out the
bigots and the fearmongers, and work to compromise and get things done
and promote the better angels of our nature. 
-- Barack Hussein Obama, 44th US President (b. 4 Aug 1961)


   There is one art of which man should be master, the art of reflection.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (21 Oct 1772-1834)


   Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three
kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to
have. 
-- Edward Everett Hale, author (3 Apr 1822-1909)


   I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of
the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power
than by violent and sudden usurpations. 
-- James Madison, fourth US president (16 Mar 1751-1836)


   The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of
the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary
dangers from abroad. 
-- James Madison, fourth US president (16 Mar 1751-1836)


   The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people
is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average
intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course
by bitter experience.
-- W.E.B. Du Bois, educator, civil rights activist, and writer (23 Feb 1868-1963)


   When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe. 
-- John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (21 Apr 1838-1914)


   The poet is a kinsman in the clouds
Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, his wings are in the way. 
-- Charles Baudelaire, poet, critic and translator (9 Apr 1821-1867)


   Dr. Anthony Fauci lays out three ways future scientific communicators
can build trust:
1) Always go by the data
2) Admit when you don't know something
3) The goal is not to show how smart you are. It's to get people to
understand what you're talking about.
-- Anthony Stephen Fauci, American physician and immunologist, https://twitter.com/YaleSPH/status/1320827040526905344