Quotes

Last updated December 14, 2000

Real punks help little old ladies across the street because it shocks more people than if they spit on the sidewalk.

In the force if so strong Yoda is, with words in the proper order a sentence construct then why cannot he?

Paranoia is not the belief that everybody's out to get you -- they are. Paranoia is the belief that everybody's conspiring to get you.

???


"Sleep", you wrote, "sleep my dear", in a letter somewhere...
Oh, but how can I sleep with your voice in my head,
and an ocean between us, and room in my bed?
Have I come to the point where I'm losing the grip,
or is it still time to get into the swing of things?

a-ha [The Swing of Things]


I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Douglas Adams


I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.

Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it's one of the best.

Woody Allen


There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself --- an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.

Antisthenes


...the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.

Aristotle [Poetics]


People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy.

Elliot Aronson


Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours
Do you think, if you say the word "impossible" enough times, that difficult things will suddenly become easier for you?

Richard Bach


If you don't like someone, the way he[she] holds his[her] spoon will make you furious; if you do like him[her], he[she] can turn his plate over in your lap and you won't mind.

Irving Becker


Is it so small a thing, to rest a while and enjoy the comforts of good food and drink, before returning to the madness?

V.F. Boswell


If you would have the message of the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again; for this is the message give you by the Gods, the karmic lesson you must learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.

Marion Zimmer Bradley [Mists of Avalon]


Oh, make me a cradle to rock my weary world
Make me a gentle voice to soothe her when she weeps
Make my arms strong enough to hold her when she wakes
And make me a lullaby so sweet and fine
That I can sing my weary world to sleep.

T. J. Burnside Clapp [Lullaby for a Weary World]


"Would you tell me, please which way I ought to walk from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Lewis Carrol


Success is moving from one failure to the next with enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill


The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

Charles DeGaulle


The juvenile sea squirt... has a rudimentary nervous system. When it... takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.)

Daniel Dennett


History isn't repeating itself, it is stuttering over an issue it hasn't yet addressed.

ET 101


We worked and worked, didn't get anywhere. That's how you know you're doing research.

Harold "Doc" Edgerton


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.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

Everything should be made as simple as possible -- but no simpler.

Albert Einstein


How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?

E.M. Forster


The Seven Social Sins:

Politics without principle.
Wealth without work.
Commerce without morality.
Pleasure without conscience.
Education without character.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.

Mohandas K. Ghandi


You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself - and how little I deserve it.

W.S. Gilbert


When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Love is a perky little elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine-gun.

Matt Groening


You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.

Sacha Guitry


When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"

Sydney J. Harris


It is one thing to want somebody out of your life; it is another thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of liquid Drano!

The extreme always seems to make an impression.

Heathers


The large brain, like large government, may not be able to do simple things in a simple way.

Donald Hebb


There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

C.A.R. Hoare


Maybe we can make language a complete impediment to communication.

Hobbes the Tiger


You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Eric Hoffer


Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable,
and light, it has a call that's hard to hear.
I wrapped my fear around me like a blanket,
I sailed my ship of safety 'till I sank it,
now I'm crawling on your shores.

Their dreams clustered around me like wounds that needed healing.
I couldn't hear them for the thunder.
I was half the naked distance between hell and heaven's ceiling,
And it almost drove me under.

My place is of the sun, and this place is of the dark,
And I do not feel the romance, I do not catch the spark.

Indigo Girls


Have you ever heard something which made everything else sound like echoes?

Keith Irwin


The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions.

Anthony Jay


Do you ever get to feeling that the story¹s too damned real, and in the present tense?
Or that everyone is on the stage, and you¹re the only person who¹s been left sitting in the audience?

Jethro Tull


It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.

Sally Kempton


When you make a decision, do something! Don't just go somewhere, or make another decision!

Brian Kernighan & P. J. Plauger [The Elements of Programming Style]


A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

Charles F. Kettering


Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.

Alphonse De Lamaertine


A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: "We did this to ourselves."

Lao-Tzu


He has been known by many names: Lucifer, Beelzabub, Belial, the Prince of Lies, Satan, and at a party once an obnoxious drunk kept calling him "Dude."

Gary Larson [The Far Side]


How can she say she's lost without him?
He's not a compass, he never was.
How can she say life has no meaning?
Life meant something before he came around; it still does.
How can she say he stole her heart?
You can't steal what's been given away.
Love isn't blind, but it's sometime shortsighted,
And if you're not careful you can lose your way.

Christine Lavin [Compass]


The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. [...] But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else.

Ursula K. LeGuin


If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Stephen Levine


If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Abraham Lincoln


You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Naguib Mahfouz


There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Nelson Mandela [A Long Walk to Freedom]


It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

Judith Martin


For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

H.L. Mencken


What would a Martian visitor think to see a human being laugh? It must look truly horrible: the sight of furious gestures, flailing limbs, and thorax heaving in frenzied contortions...

Marvin Minsky


A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.

H.H. Munro


People forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well you did it.

Howard W. Newton


Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

Reinhold Niebuhr


Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goals.

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!

Friedrich Nietzsche


The witnessing of titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal.

Larry Niven


Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

Robert Orben


The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from.

C. Northcote Parkinson


The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Linus Pauling


After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.

Alfred Edward Perlman


The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out it's just sort of a tired feeling.

Paula Poundstone


If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.

Dennis Roch


No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt


Most people would rather die than think. In fact, they do so regularly.

Bertrand Russell


Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.

Eliel Saarinen


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 [The Little Prince]


If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

Seneca


And when you're in a Slump, you're not in for much fun.
UnSlumping yourself is not easily done.

Dr. Seuss


Dave lay in the darkness and thought about life. He had learned early on that he would never truly understand anything. The best you could hope for was a working misunderstanding. Through careful refinement, a working misunderstanding might actually lead to successful predictions. This, as he understood it, was called science.

Lewis Shiner


I think most expert systems should be referred to as "that-guy-in-the-corner-who-everyone-hates-but-can-answer-the-weirdest-questions systems". Or more succinctly, "nerd systems".

Peter da Silva


There is no problem so big it cannot be run away from.

Snoopy the Dog


You're so nice...
you're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice...
I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right.

Trouble is, son,
The harder you run,
The more you feel undefined
By what you have left undone...
and more, what you've left behind.

Stephen Sondheim [Into the Woods]


Things have gone as far as they can possibly go when they have gotten as bad as they can reasonably get.

"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when we could have said no. But we missed it. Now it's too late."
"Oh well. We'll know better next time."

The color yellow is a mystical experience shared by everyone. Discuss!

Tom Stoppard [Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead]


It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.

Take care that no one hates you justly.

Publiius Syrus


Inside every jumbled pile of person there's a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of.

They Might Be Giants


Deserves death? I dare say he does! Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?... Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

J.R.R. Tolkien


No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.

Turkish proverb


Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between a dog and a man.

Mark Twain


Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.

Miguel Unamuno


No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire


It's my belief we all, at one time or another, secretly ask ourselves the question, "Am I crazy?"
In my case, the answer came back: a resounding YES!

Reality was once a primitive method of crowd control that got out of hand.

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it. I can take it in small doses, but as a lifestyle I found it too confining.

The human mind is kind of like a piñata. When it breaks open, there's a lot of surprises inside.

the Nobel sperm bank. Something bothers me about the world's greatest geniuses sitting around reading pornography and jerking off.

I worry that our lives are like soap operas, We can go for months and not tune in to them, and six months later we look in and the same stuff is still going on.

I worry whoever thought up the term "quality control" thought if we didn't control it, it would get out of hand.

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.

Not only do I not have a very firm grasp on reality, but I have sort of a loose grip on my fantasies, too.

It's one thing to tolerate a boring marriage, but a boring affair does not make sense.

What goes up, must come down. But don't expect it to come down where you can find it.

I don't mind that the phrase "truth in advertising" was probably just some lie thought up by some guy in advertising.

I figure we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.

So I asked 'em, "...What do you think of people as a whole?" They said they thought it would be an excellent idea.

Jane Wagner [The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe]


The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

Oscar Wilde


Everyday language is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than it.

Ludwig Wittgenstein


Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.

Why don't "minimalists" find a shorter name for themselves?

Steven Wright