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FORTUNES.TXT
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1995-07-15
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This is the fortune database file. You can add and edit these records.
You can delete the file if you don't like the feature.
There must be a % separator line after the last record.
%
(1) Everything depends.
(2) Nothing is always.
(3) Everything is sometimes.
%
1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
the law!
%
10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
%
$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
%
186,282 miles per second:
It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!
%
2180, U.S. History question:
What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what
office did he later hold?
%
$3,000,000
%
"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible
simulation!"
%
43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- System halted
%
7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National
Redwood Forest.
%
7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the
Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.
%
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 Ghandi
%
A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
responsibility at the other.
%
A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
-- Carl Sandburg
%
A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out
of a divorce.
-- Don Quinn
%
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
-- Mark Twain
%
A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
adds up to be real money.
-- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
%
A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
%
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
%
A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.
%
... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you
have turned into a pile of dust.
%
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
enlightened him with ours.
%
A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
as afterward.
%
A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the
poor to protect them from each other.
%
A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
%
A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not
mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty
trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.
-- Dave Barry
%
A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
%
A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon.
Avoid him. He's a Commie.
%
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
-- Bill Vaughan
%
A city is a large community where people are lonesome together
-- Herbert Prochnow
%
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
wants to read.
-- Mark Twain
%
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
%
A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
%
A CONS is an object which cares.
-- Bernie Greenberg.
%
A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.
%
A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
-- Dyer
%
A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the
damned things is ample.
-- Rebecca West
%
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
-- Ben Franklin
%
A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen
lantern.
-- Edgar A. Shoaff
%
A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?
%
A day without sunshine is like night.
%
A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur
coat.
%
A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you will look forward to the trip.
%
A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano ...
%
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
-- Ogden Nash
%
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
subject.
-- Winston Churchill
%
A fool must now and then be right by chance.
%
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
-- G. B. Shaw
%
A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block
of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an
elephant.
%
A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
-- D. Gries
%
"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
-- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
%
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
-- Adlai Stevenson
%
A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
ducks.
-- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
%
A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *that had to mean something*.
-- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"
%
A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort
of).
%
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened
into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the
hope of greening the landscape of idea.
-- John Ciardi
%
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
-- William James
%
A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest
man a century.
%
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
%
A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide
who has the better lawyer.
-- Robert Frost
%
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
%
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
%
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
%
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing.
%
A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
in than some that do.
-- Dennis M. Ritchie
%
A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work
by being declared to work.
-- Anatol Holt
%
A Law of Computer Programming:
Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
will find the programmers cannot write in English.
%
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
nothing.
%
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
-- H. H. Munroe
%
A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.
%
A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any
price.
%
A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in
his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and
exceptional ability in that particular field."
%
A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
-- Steve Wright
%
A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
believe everything positively stinks.
-- Lew Col
%
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.
%
A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
%
A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out
on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed
loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom
do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"
%
A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary.
Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now
has no excuse for further procrastination.
%
A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies
insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the
right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.
%
A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the
rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion.
%
A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.
%
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
-- Gloria Steinem
%
A penny saved is ridiculous.
%
A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
%
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
-- George Wald
%
"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"
-- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"
%
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
%
A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that
your wife will give you for free.
%
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
was intended for her preservation.
-- Colton
%
"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked
out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
-- Steel City News
%
"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives."
%
A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
that the system works.
%
A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
the real reason.
%
A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized
rosewater.
%
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
%
A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will
keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those
that are worth committing.
-- Samuel Butler
%
A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
-- Prof. Steiner
%
... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
-- Mark Twain
%
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-- O'Henry
%
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures.
-- Daniel Webster
%
A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an
exam.
%
A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something
undreamed of by its author.
-- S. C. Johnson
%
A tautology is a thing which is tautological.
%
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
blowing first.
%
A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene
triangle.
%
A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
%
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
in students.
-- John Ciardi
%
"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly."
-- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin
%
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature
replaces it with.
-- Tennessee Williams
%
A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
getting nervous.
%
A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
people's attention.
%
"A witty saying proves nothing."
-- Voltaire
%
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe
in God.
%
A.A.A.A.A.:
An organization for drunks who drive
%
AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!
You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!
%
Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
%
"About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the
ends."
-- Herbert Hoover
%
Absence makes the heart go wander.
%
Absent, adj.:
Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;
slandered.
%
Absentee, n.:
A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove
himself from the sphere of exaction.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Abstainer, n.:
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
pleasure.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Absurdity, n.:
A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own
opinion.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
because the stakes are so low.
-- Wallace Sayre
%
Accident, n.:
A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of
body is better.
%
According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least
once a year.
%
According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
-- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo
%
According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are
totally worthless.
%
According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never
dies.
%
Accordion, n.:
A bagpipe with pleats.
%
Accuracy, n.:
The vice of being right
%
Acid -- better living through chemistry.
%
Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality.
%
Acquaintance, n.:
A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well
enough to lend to.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
"Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from
coughing."
%
Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had
everyone glued in their seats!"
Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of
it!"
%
Actor: So what do you do for a living?
Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
dishes for Chinese restaurants.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
%
Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
%
ADA, n.:
Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in
Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA
awareness."
%
Admiration, n.:
Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Adolescence, n.:
The stage between puberty and adultery.
%
"Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look
like you ..."
-- Gilda Radner
%
Adore, v.:
To venerate expectantly.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Adult, n.:
One old enough to know better.
%
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest
way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
-- Sinclair Lewis
%
Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic,
then at least be asceptic.
%
After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
%
"... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known
quotations."
-- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare
%
After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not
for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have
simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
-- P. J. O'Rourke
%
After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found
on the bench.
%
"After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of
the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the
cost to others, to win advancement."
-- Norman Thomas
%
After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?
%
After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe
everything. Just in case.
%
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
removed.
%
Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a
change.
%
Afternoon, n.:
That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the
morning.
%
Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
%
Air is water with holes in it
%
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
-- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
%
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.
%
Alex Haley was adopted!
%
Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
for a dial tone.
%
Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of
them keeps paying for it.
-- Peggy Joyce
%
All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely
than others.
-- Alan Truscott
%
All extremists should be taken out and shot.
%
All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
without thinking.
%
"All flesh is grass"
-- Isiah
Smoke a friend today.
%
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
%
All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own
importance.
%
All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled
by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...
%
All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
%
All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are
Socrates.
-- Woody Allen
%
"All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us
sane."
%
"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more
specific."
-- Jane Wagner
%
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
-- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
%
All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of
the United States.
-- Vic Gold
%
All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
%
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
%
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of
every organism to live beyond its income.
-- Samuel Butler
%
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- E. Rutherford
%
"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
hands."
-- Saint Patrick
%
All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
%
"... all the modern inconveniences ..."
-- Mark Twain
%
All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most
ridiculous ones.
-- La Rochefoucauld
%
All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by
the government in less than a second.
-- Jim Fiebig
%
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
-- Sean O'Casey
%
All theoretical chemistry is really physics;
and all theoretical chemists know it.
-- Richard P. Feynman
%
All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door.
%
All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for
fun. Money's just the way we keep score.
%
All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.
%
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes
infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
which he was born.
-- Francois Fenelon
%
Alone, adj.:
In bad company.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight
Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
-- Dave Barry
%
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
%
Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid
back.
%
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
%
"Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing
that way."
%
Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.
%
AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end
across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.
%
AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it
would completely cover the Sahara Desert.
%
Ambidextrous, adj.:
Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
-- Charlie McCarthy
%
America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism
to decadence without touching civilization.
-- John O'Hara
%
America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,
until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and
changed its name to "America".
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
"Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it."
%
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
people refuse to see it.
-- James Michener, "Space"
%
An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but
is always polite to traffic cops.
%
"An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to
New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but
not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax."
-- David Letterman
%
An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away.
%
An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it.
%
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
really care to know.
%
An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
%
An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.
%
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!"
%
An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
-- A. P. Herbert
%
An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future.
%
"... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often
picturesque liar."
-- Mark Twain
%
An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these
eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as
possible.
-- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"
%
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.
%
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge."
%
Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no
government at all.
%
... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
%
... And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man
-- A. E. Housman
%
And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.
%
"... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of
your own."
-- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter
Preposterous Words
%
"...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a
courtesy detail."
%
"And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"
asked the father of his little son.
"Diet."
%
Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
Galileo: No, unhappy the land that needs heroes.
-- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
%
Angels we have heard on High
Tell us to go out and Buy.
-- Tom Lehrer
%
Ankh if you love Isis.
%
Anoint, v.:
To grease a king or other great functionary already
sufficiently slippery.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
%
Anthony's Law of Force:
Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
%
Antonym, n.:
The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.
%
Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art.
-- Charles McCabe
%
Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
-- Charles McCabe
%
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
-- Aesop
%
Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that
this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a
whole week.
%
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to
sell it.
%
Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
-- Sydney J. Harris
%
Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger
object.
%
Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to
exactly the point of most pressure.
-- Milt Barber
%
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
-- Rich Kulawiec
%
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
demo.
%
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
%
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.
%
Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
%
Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.
%
Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is
probably parked.
%
Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
%
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is
supposed to be doing at the moment.
-- Robert Benchley
%
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
-- Publilius Syrus
%
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with
none.
%
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
%
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
-- Samuel Goldwyn
%
Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad.
-- W. C. Fields
%
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
account be allowed to do the job.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never
tried taking candy from a baby.
-- Robin Hood
%
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
%
Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate.
%
Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.
%
Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the
price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW"
means the price went way up.
%
Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate.
%
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
%
"Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution"
%
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of
the future for the problems of the past: it creates a new generation of
coding bums.
%
"APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I
can't read any of them."
-- Roy Keir
%
Aquadextrous, adj.:
Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off
with your toes.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Arbitrary systems, pl.n.:
Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing
general can be said."
%
ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE --
FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE
%
Are you a turtle?
%
Are you a turtle?
%
"Arguments with furniture are rarely productive."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
%
ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You
are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are
not very nice.
%
Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your
shoes.
-- Mickey Mouse
%
Armadillo:
To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle
%
Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to
measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you
imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
Art is anything you can get away with.
-- Marshall McLuhan.
%
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
-- Paul Gauguin
%
Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum.
%
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
%
As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
-- Weisert
%
As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
%
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
popular.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.
%
"As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500
programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging."
-- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new
computer system.
%
As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's
so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
-- Woody Allen
%
As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there
is always a future in Computer Maintenance.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free
variable."
%
As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself."
%
ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS.
%
Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if
one went to Harvard).
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
%
Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
%
Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the
Station-to-Station rate.
%
Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the
bathtub, it tolls for thee.
%
Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell"
for an answer.
%
"Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old
woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,
she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.'"
-- David Letterman
%
Ass, n.:
The masculine of "lass".
%
"At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los
Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head
under the exhaust of a bus until he revived."
%
At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is
not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where
it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.
-- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow
%
At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
-- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985
%
At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
-- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985
%
... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand.
-- J. B. White
%
"At least they're EXPERIENCED incompetents"
%
At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his
thumb with a hammer.
-- Marshall Lumsden
%
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will
find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on
the computer.
%
Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole
or street lamp.
%
Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.
-- Winston Churchill
%
Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever
depths they were once able to plumb.
-- Stanley Kaufman
%
Automobile, n.:
A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down
pedestrians.
%
Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Avoid reality at all costs.
%
"Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but
we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you."
-- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student
%
Bacchus, n.:
A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for
getting drunk.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Bagdikian's Observation:
Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American
newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a
ukelele.
%
Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry:
A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides
by governors.
%
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
%
Banectomy, n.:
The removal of bruises on a banana.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.
%
Barach's Rule:
An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own
physician.
%
Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the
floor -- especially in the dark.
%
Barometer, n.:
An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we
are having.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Barth's Distinction:
There are two types of people: those who divide people into two
types, and those who don't.
%
Baruch's Observation:
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
%
Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high
taxes.
-- Will Rogers
%
Basic is a high level languish.
APL is a high level anguish.
%
"BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'."
%
Basic, n.:
A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in
that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
%
Bathquake, n.:
The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water
faucet is turned on to a certain point.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your
door.
%
BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...)
%
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely
get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your
face.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
%
Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
-- Mark Twain
%
Be different: conform.
%
Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so
get used to it.
%
Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake.
%
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and
miss
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
%
Bees are very busy souls
They have no time for birth controls
And that is why in times like these
There are so many Sons of Bees.
%
Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's
ego.
%
Begathon, n.:
A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so
you won't have to watch commercials.
%
Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh
away.
%
"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
%
"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
%
Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
%
Bennett's Laws of Horticulture:
(1) Houses are for people to live in.
(2) Gardens are for plants to live in.
(3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.
%
"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence"
-- Time Bandits
%
Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon.
%
Better dead than mellow.
%
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
%
Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!
%
Beware of low-flying butterflies.
%
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
-- Leonard Brandwein
%
Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a
drip under pressure.
%
Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but
nothing of interest is easy.
%
Binary, adj.:
Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
%
"Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same
thing as division."
%
Bipolar, adj.:
Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,
New York
%
Birth, n.:
The first and direst of all disasters.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic
%
Bizoos, n.:
The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a
basketball.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...
%
Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
%
Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as
Wheels.
%
BLISS is ignorance
%
Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
%
Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.
%
Blore's Razor:
Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is
funnier.
%
Boling's postulate:
If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
%
Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
vividly manifests their lack of progress.
%
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
%
BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!
%
Boob's Law:
You always find something in the last place you look.
%
Bore, n.:
A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.
-- Walter Winchell
%
Bore, n.:
A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Boren's Laws:
(1) When in charge, ponder.
(2) When in trouble, delegate.
(3) When in doubt, mumble.
%
Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry
that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation
straightened out for a crowbar.
-- O. W. Holmes
%
Boston, n.:
Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for
finishing second in the Irish jig competition.
%
"Boy, life takes a long time to live
-- Steven Wright
%
Boy, n.:
A noise with dirt on it.
%
Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least
when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
-- James Thurber
%
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
-- Kin Hubbard
%
Bradley's Bromide:
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a
committee -- that will do them in.
%
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have
handled this?"
%
Brain fried -- Core dumped
%
Brain, n.:
The apparatus with which we think that we think.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]:
To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of
error in an opponent.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,
since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
Bride, n.:
A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
revitalize the corner saloon.
%
Broad-mindedness, n.:
The result of flattening high-mindedness out.
%
Brook's Law:
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
%
Brooke's Law:
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it
beyond recognition.
%
Bubble Memory, n.:
A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's
intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".
%
Bucy's Law:
Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
%
Bugs, pl. n.:
Small living things that small living boys throw on small
living girls.
%
Bumper sticker:
"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British
manufacture"
%
Bureaucrat, n.:
A person who cuts red tape sideways.
-- J. McCabe
%
Bureaucrat, n.:
A politician who has tenure.
%
Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.
%
"But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations
paws."
%
"But I don't like Spam!!!!"
%
"But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast
to the nearest gas station."
%
But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
-- Mark "The Bard" Twain
%
... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
-- Virginia Masters
%
"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable
computers?"
%
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you.
%
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
to suspect 'Hungry' ..."
-- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
%
By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I
mean.
-- Mark Twain
%
Cabbage, n.:
A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
a man's head.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception."
-- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
%
Cahn's Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.
%
California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
-- Fred Allen
%
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
-- Indian proverb
%
"Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target
Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept."
%
"Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle."
-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
%
"Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth
Corner, Vermont."
-- Clarence Darrow
%
Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two
points.
-- M. M. Johnston
%
Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents
for postage and 30 cents for storage.
-- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial
Post
%
Captain Penny's Law:
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
%
Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than
expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to
complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their
planning to reduce the time it takes.
%
Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and
trousers that don't match.
%
Cat, n.:
Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.
%
Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
-- Mark Twain
%
Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.
%
CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..
%
Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
%
Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the
center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation
works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool.
-- Kelvin Throop III
%
Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so,
how many?
%
Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny--
Did you ever try buying them without money?
-- Ogden Nash
%
Character Density, n.:
The number of very weird people in the office.
%
Checkuary, n.:
The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and
ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his
checks.
%
Chef, n.:
Any cook who swears in French.
%
Chemicals, n.:
Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.
%
Chemistry is applied theology.
-- Augustus Stanley Owsley III
%
Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.
%
Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36:
Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn
headgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer".
-- Chicago Reader 3/27/81
%
Chicago, n.:
Where the dead still vote ... early and often!
%
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
%
Chicken Little was right.
%
Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every
effort to teach them good manners.
%
Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're
going to catch you in next.
-- Franklin P. Jones
%
Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for
word what you shouldn't have said.
%
Chism's Law of Completion:
The amount of time required to complete a government project is
precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.
%
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
%
Christ:
A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time.
%
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.
%
Cigarette, n.:
A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in
between.
%
Cinemuck, n.:
The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which
covers the floors of movie theaters.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Clairvoyant, n.:
A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that
which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like
shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
-- Phyllis Diller
%
Cleanliness is next to impossible.
%
Cleveland still lives. God must be dead.
%
"Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day."
%
Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
%
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
society.
-- Mark Twain
%
COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance.
%
Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.
%
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
"Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong."
-- Blair Houghton
%
Coincidence, n.:
You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was
going on.
%
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
-- G. K. Chesterton
%
Cold, adj.:
When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.
%
Cold, adj.:
When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own
pockets.
%
Collaboration, n.:
A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the
other fellow can spell.
%
Command, n.:
Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in
such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control.
%
Commitment, n.:
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs.
The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.
%
Committee, n.:
A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group
decide that nothing can be done.
-- Fred Allen
%
Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
be appointed to do the work.
%
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
%
Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
-- Josh Billings
%
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
-- Albert Einstein
%
Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness
of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule."
-- David Guaspari
%
Computer programmers do it byte by byte
%
Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems
theory.
%
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
%
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
%
Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in
the world that just don't add up.
%
Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more
than the estimate the job will cost.
%
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
-- LaRouchefoucauld
%
Concept, n.:
Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than
$25,000.
%
... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *did* quote anybody in this
business, it probably would be gibberish.
-- Thom McLeod
%
Condense soup, not books!
%
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is
good for dandruff.
-- Peter de Vries
%
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the
situation.
%
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking
-- H. L. Mencken
%
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
%
Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you
wish you weren't.
%
"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich."
-- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]
%
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then
give it back to them.
%
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and
if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
%
"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."
%
Conversation, n.:
A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
is called the listener.
%
Corrupt, adj.:
In politics, holding an office of trust or profit.
%
Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a
muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can
make of capitalism.
-- Walter Lippmann
%
Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job
is to enforce the law and fight crime.
-- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan
%
Court, n.:
A place where they dispense with justice.
-- Arthur Train
%
Coward, n.:
One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with
nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.
-- Wernher von Braun
%
Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
-- A. E. Newman
%
Critic, n.:
A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries
to please him.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Croll's Query:
If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?
%
cursor address, n:
"Hello, cursor!"
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
%
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart
%
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart
%
Cynic, n.:
One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced
eye.
%
Dare to be naive.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
%
Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie.
%
Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."
Allen Gwinn: "Yours is."
%
Dawn, n.:
The time when men of reason go to bed.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed.
%
%DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory
VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears
%
Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also
easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to
improve.
%
Dear Lord:
I just want *one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On
the other hand", again.
%
Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.
%
Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired.
-- R. Geis
%
Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.
%
"Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'".
%
Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down
%
Death is only a state of mind.
Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else.
%
Death to all fanatics!
%
Decision maker, n.:
The person in your office who was unable to form a task force
before the music stopped.
%
Deliberation, n.:
The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is
buttered on.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
"Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow."
%
Demand the establishment of the government
in its rightful home at Disneyland.
%
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than
we deserve.
-- George Bernard Shaw
%
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
-- Senator Soaper
%
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
-- G. B. Shaw
%
Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you
don't think.
%
Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by
Jackasses.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
-- Jawaharlal Nehru
%
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people
are right more than half of the time.
-- E. B. White
%
Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the
board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.
%
Dentist, n.:
A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls
coins out of one's pockets.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will
be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over
the table.
-- The Anarchist Cookbook
%
DeVries's Dilemma:
If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want
hits the paper.
%
Did I say 2? I lied.
%
Did you know ...
That no-one ever reads these things?
%
Did you know that clones never use mirrors?
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined
them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction?
%
Die, v.:
To stop sinning suddenly.
-- Elbert Hubbard
%
"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a
conventional thing to happen to him."
-- John Barrymore's dying words
%
Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.
%
Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
%
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
%
Disc space -- the final frontier!
%
Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
yours too."
-- Dave Haynie
%
Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.
%
Distinctive, adj.:
A different color or shape than our competitors.
%
Distress, n.:
A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape
injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any
damage inflicted on the vehicle.
%
Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?
%
Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?
%
Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.
%
Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon.
%
Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to
anger.
%
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good
with ketchup."
%
Do not read this fortune under penalty of law.
Violators will be prosecuted.
(Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.))
%
Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight.
%
Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each
day as it comes.
-- Donald Kaul
%
Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.
%
Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum.
%
Do you have lysdexia?
%
Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take
the time to take the dirt out of them?
%
"Do you think what we're doing is wrong?"
"Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!"
"I've never done anything illegal before."
"I thought you said you were an accountant!"
%
Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and
when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
-- Dick Brandon
%
Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must
be good because the programmers hate it so much.
%
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
%
Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow.
%
Don't be humble ... you're not that great.
-- Golda Meir
%
Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
%
Don't change the reason, just change the excuses!
-- Joe Cointment
%
Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today!
%
Don't feed the bats tonight.
%
Don't get even -- get odd!
%
Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly
misleading. Debug only code.
-- Dave Storer
%
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes
you nothing. It was here first."
-- Mark Twain
%
Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.
%
Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.
%
Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier.
%
Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today.
%
Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam.
%
Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking
distance.
%
Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.
%
Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.
%
Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy
it today you can do it again tomorrow.
%
"Don't say yes until I finish talking."
-- Darryl F. Zanuck
%
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business.
Cheat.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in!
-- "Brazil"
%
Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
-- Walt Kelly
%
Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive.
%
Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective.
%
"Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to
get more wax!!"
%
Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts
avoiding you.
-- The Old Farmer's Almanac
%
"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
%
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already
tomorrow in Australia.
-- Charles Schultz
%
Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too
busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.
%
Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in?
%
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
belief in the tooth fairy.
%
Down with categorical imperative!
%
"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
%
Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
of your eyes.
%
Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *is* fun trying.
%
Drive defensively. Buy a tank.
%
Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic
route!
%
Ducharme's Axiom:
If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize
yourself as part of the problem.
%
Ducharme's Precept:
Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
%
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and
it holds the universe together ...
-- Carl Zwanzig
%
Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders
has been discontinued.
%
Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate
and captain of your soul.
%
Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been
discontinued.
%
During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several
times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o
%
"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have
nothing whatever to do with it."
-- W. Somerset Maugham
%
E Pluribus Unix
%
Eagleson's Law:
Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more
months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is
an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
%
Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends
%
/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.
%
Earth is a beta site.
%
"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun."
-- Jeff Berner
%
Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
%
"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work."
%
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
%
Economics, n.:
Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K.
Galbraith ...
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy
would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it
hasn't.
-- Robert Orben
%
Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a
percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
%
Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.
-- Fred Allen
%
Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.
-- Irsin Edman
%
Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!
-- Bullwinkle Moose
%
Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.
-- Adlai Stevenson
%
Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain
of being a damned fool.
-- Bellamy Brooks
%
Egotist, n.:
A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Ehrman's Commentary:
(1) Things will get worse before they get better.
(2) Who said things would get better?
%
Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees.
-- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star
%
Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.
%
Electrocution, n.:
Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.
%
Elevators smell different to midgets
%
Emersons' Law of Contrariness:
Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we
can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
%
Encyclopedia Salesmen:
Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police
and tell them your house is being burgled.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
-- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
%
Entropy isn't what it used to be.
%
Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which
otherwise require harder thinking.
-- Jerome Lettvin
%
Epperson's law:
When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably
something his wife can beat him at.
%
Equal bytes for women.
%
Error in operator: add beer
%
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
-- Woody Allen
%
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to
speak it to?
-- Clarence Darrow
%
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
there."
-- Will Rogers
%
"Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
%
Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United
States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a
day.
%
Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
just how busy they are.
%
Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.
%
Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.
%
Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this
woman and stop her.
%
Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
-- Frank Moore Colby
%
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
%
Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own.
-- Don Vonada
%
"Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95."
%
Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.
-- Miguel de Cervantes
%
"Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the
richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work"
-- Robert Orben
%
Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.
It makes sense, when you don't think about it.
%
Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
%
Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and
another for which it wasn't.
%
Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.
%
Every solution breeds new problems.
%
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no
guarantee of eventual success.
%
"Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it."
%
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
-- Beckett
%
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
-- Dykstra
%
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
%
Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be
taught how not to. So it is with the great programmers.
%
Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to
realize it.
%
Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it.
%
Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately,
no one we know belongs.
%
Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being
that a belch is more satisfying.
-- Ingmar Bergman
%
Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
%
Everything you know is wrong!
%
Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler.
%
Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator.
%
Excellent day to have a rotten day.
%
Excellent time to become a missing person.
%
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
%
Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility.
%
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do
the work.
-- John G. Pollard
%
Expect the worst, it's the least you can do.
%
Expense Accounts, n.:
Corporate food stamps.
%
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
-- Olivier
%
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.
-- F. P. Jones
%
Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and
the instruction afterward.
%
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old
ones.
%
Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.
%
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
%
Expert, n.:
Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
%
F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
%
f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd.
%
f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
%
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
%
Fairy Tale, n.:
A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.
%
Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic
without looking to see whether the seeds move.
%
Faith, n:
That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be
untrue.
%
Fakir, n:
A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost
religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to
have shinnied up a rope and vanished.
%
Familiarity breeds attempt
%
Famous last words:
%
Famous, adj.:
Conspicuously miserable.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
every six months.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
Fats Loves Madelyn
%
Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ...
%
Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children,
neither will you.
%
Fifth Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
there is nothing important to do.
%
Fifty flippant frogs
Walked by on flippered feet
And with their slime they made the time
Unnaturally fleet.
%
Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North
Carolina.
%
Finagle's Creed:
Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.
%
Finagle's First Law:
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
%
Finagle's fourth Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes
it worse.
%
Finagle's Second Law:
No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be
someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it
happened according to his own pet theory.
%
Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture
on a rock.
-- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
%
Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.
%
Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.
%
Fine's Corollary:
Functionality breeds Contempt.
%
First Corollary of Taber's Second Law:
Machines that piss people off get murdered.
-- Pat Taber
%
First Law of Bicycling:
No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the
wind.
%
First Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed
the deadline).
%
First Law of Socio-Genetics:
Celibacy is not hereditary.
%
First Rule of History:
History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
other.
%
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor Who"
%
Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.
-- Robert Firth
%
FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when
the little hand is on the ....
%
Flon's Law:
There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
%
Flugg's Law:
When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the
world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
%
Flying saucers on occasion
Show themselves to human eyes.
Aliens fume, put off invasion
While they brand these tales as lies.
%
Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
-- Walt Kelly, "Putluck Pogo"
%
For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ...
%
For a good time, call (415) 642-9483
%
For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a
cat.
%
"For an adequate time call 555-3321"
%
For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be
always old-fashioned.
%
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
-- R. Clopton
%
For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.
%
For perfect happiness, remember two things:
(1) Be content with what you've got.
(2) Be sure you've got plenty.
%
For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say
"Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.
-- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to
the U.S.
%
For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz.
%
"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of
a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with
computers altogether?"
-- Jehan Shuman
%
For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they
like.
-- Abraham Lincoln
%
"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
phone calls taper off."
-- Johnny Carson
%
For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!
%
Forgetfulness, n.:
A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their
destitution of conscience.
%
Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.
%
Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
"How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
%
Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week:
Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige.
%
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19:
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.
%
fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- system halted.
%
Fourth Law of Revision:
It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about
interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you.
%
Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not
almost one, it is damn near zero.
-- David Ellis
%
Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a
policeman's tie.
%
Fresco's Discovery:
If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
%
Frisbeetarianism, n.:
The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and
gets stuck.
%
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"
%
Fuch's Warning:
If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well
enough to travel.
%
Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
Push something hard enough and it will fall over.
%
Furbling, v.:
Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank
even when you are the only person in line.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
-- H. H. Williams
%
Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening.
%
Garbage In -- Gospel Out.
%
Garter, n.:
An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her
stockings and desolating the country.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
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!!
-- Adventures of Asterix.
%
"Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore."
%
Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why
you should.
%
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus
handicapped.
-- Elbert Hubbard
%
Genius, n.:
A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with
"bright".
%
George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0.
-- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
%
George Orwell was an optimist.
%
George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
-- Ashley Cooper
%
Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.
%
Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children!
%
Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place
to stand, and I will drain the world.
%
"Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war."
-- Napolean
%
Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!
%
Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to
a new town.
%
Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.
%
"Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying
around, I'd rather lie around. No contest."
-- Eric Clapton
%
Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden:
Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP
machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some
useful work done.
%
Gnagloot, n.:
A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to
impress people.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Go 'way! You're bothering me!
%
Go climb a gravity well!
%
Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may
be in owning a piece thereof.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
%
God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six
days and then pulled an all-nighter.
%
God doesn't play dice.
-- Albert Einstein
%
God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh
%
God is a polythiest
%
God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's
%
God is real, unless declared integer.
%
God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the
elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying
other things.
-- Pablo Picasso
%
God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
-- Alfred Jarry
%
God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place.
%
God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.
%
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
-- Mark Twain
%
God made the integers; all else is the work of Man.
-- Kronecker
%
God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.
%
God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.
-- Albert Einstein
%
God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them.
%
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.
%
Goldenstern's Rules:
(1) Always hire a rich attorney
(2) Never buy from a rich salesman.
%
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad
example.
-- La Rouchefoucauld
%
Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
%
Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase.
%
Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school.
%
Good day to let down old friends who need help.
%
Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
%
Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.
%
Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.
%
Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's
new lover.
%
"Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored."
-- George Saunders' dying words
%
Gordon's first law:
If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing
well.
%
"Gosh that takes me back ... or forward. That's the trouble with time
travel, you never can tell."
-- Dr. Who
%
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
time travel, you never can tell."
-- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"
%
Got Mole problems?
Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23
%
Goto, n.:
A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers
to complain about unstructured programmers.
-- Ray Simard
%
Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.
-- John Updike, "Couples"
%
Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are
different lies.
%
Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know
any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he
doesn't know much.
-- Will Rogers
%
Grabel's Law:
2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.
%
Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture.
%
Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture.
%
Grandpa Charnock's Law:
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
%
Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks.
%
Great minds run in great circles.
%
Green light in a.m. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic
tickets.
%
Greener's Law:
Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.
%
Grelb's Reminder:
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
average drivers.
%
"Grub first, then ethics."
-- Bertolt Brecht
%
H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.
Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude.
-- Maxwell Bodenheim
%
Hacker's Law:
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a
nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.
%
Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.
%
... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
and you would not have been informed.
%
Hail to the sun god
He sure is a fun god
Ra! Ra! Ra!
%
Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big
enough majority in any town?
-- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"
%
Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.)
%
Hand, n.:
A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and
commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Hanlon's Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
stupidity.
%
Hanson's Treatment of Time:
There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days
before Saturday.
%
Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
-- Oscar Levant
%
Happiness, n.:
An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of
another.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?
%
Hardware, n.:
The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
%
Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand
convicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want.
-- Tobias Smollet
%
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
-- Tom Lehrer
%
Harris's Lament:
All the good ones are taken.
%
Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment
ruined.
%
Hartley's First Law:
You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
on his back, you've got something.
%
Hartley's Second Law:
Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
%
Harvard Law:
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will
do as it damn well pleases.
%
"Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?"
"Yes, I don't have one."
"Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..."
-- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372
%
Hatred, n.:
A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's
superiority.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Have an adequate day.
%
Have an adequate day.
%
Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell
you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time
for play?
%
"Have you lived here all your life?"
"Oh, twice that long."
%
Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a
crack in your sidewalk?
%
Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline
sharply the minute they start waving guns around?
-- Dr. Who
%
Have you reconsidered a computer career?
%
"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental
effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable
perversion."
-- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails"
%
"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"
%
He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation
perfectly delightful.
-- Sydney Smith
%
He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and
heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope
of ever behaving "normally."
-- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
%
He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
"He is now rising from affluence to poverty."
-- Mark Twain
%
He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.
%
He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.
-- John Mason Brown, drama critic
%
He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
-- Jonathon Swift
%
"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him
insufferable."
%
"He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both
eyes ..."
%
He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
attacks democracy itself.
-- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
%
He who Laughs, Lasts.
%
"He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..."
%
He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be
there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.
%
"He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..."
%
HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science.
SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains.
-- Walt Kelley
%
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
%
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx
%
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx
%
Heavy, adj.:
Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.
%
"Heisenberg may have slept here"
%
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
-- Milton Friedman
%
"Hello," he lied.
-- Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent
%
Help a swallow land at Capistrano.
%
Help fight continental drift.
%
Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!
%
Help stamp out and abolish redundancy.
%
Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!
%
HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!
-- E. E. CUMMINGS
%
"Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from
Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..."
%
"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like
`Psychic Wins Lottery'?"
-- Jay Leno
%
Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs,
then they'd be algorithms.
%
"Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!"
-- W. C. Fields
%
Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person
reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes,
nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.
%
Hindsight is an exact science.
%
Hire the morally handicapped.
%
"His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had
money, he went to Southern California."
%
"His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice"
-- Foghorn Leghorn
%
"His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier."
%
History is curious stuff
You'd think by now we had enough
Yet the fact remains I fear
They make more of it every year.
%
History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.
%
Hlade's Law:
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they
will find an easier way to do it.
%
Hoare's Law of Large Problems:
Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get
out.
%
Hofstadter's Law:
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
Hofstadter's Law into account.
%
Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.
-- Rex Reed
%
Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories:
The ultimate in watchdog weaponry.
-- Chris Shaw
%
"Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense"
%
Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.
-- F. M. Hubbard
%
Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."
%
Honk if you love peace and quiet.
%
Horngren's Observation:
Among economists, the real world is often a special case.
%
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
people.
-- W. C. Fields
%
Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.
%
"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."
-- Neil Armstrong
%
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
%
How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?
%
How come wrong numbers are never busy?
%
"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows."
%
How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?
-- Elliot, "E.T."
%
How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're
on.
%
How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to
Dayton?
-- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey
%
How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
%
How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
%
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
#1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.
%
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
#15 Your pet rock snaps at you.
%
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
#32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of
you.
%
Howe's Law:
Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
%
However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional
manner ... sulking and nausea.
-- Tom K. Ryan
%
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
%
Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.
%
"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse."
-- William Gilbert
%
Hurewitz's Memory Principle:
The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
to ..... to ........ uh ..............
%
I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work.
%
"I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!"
-- Paul McCracken
%
"I am not now, and never have been, a girlfriend of Henry Kissinger."
-- Gloria Steinem
%
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party.
-- Dennis Ritchie
%
"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it."
-- English Professor
%
"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
-- Winston Churchill
%
"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone
has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."
-- English Professor, Ohio University
%
I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast
with an option to buy.
%
"I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater."
%
'I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean."
-- G. K. Chesterton
%
"I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."
-- Will Rogers
%
"I bet the human brain is a kludge."
-- Marvin Minsky
%
I brake for chezlogs!
%
I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.
-- Biff Barf
%
I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
%
"I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
true."
-- Harry Truman
%
"I can resist anything but temptation."
%
"I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."
-- Joe Walsh
%
"I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling."
-- Florence Henderson
%
I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can
understand it.
-- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
%
I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a
novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
-- Fred Allen
%
"I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
-- Lillian Hellman
%
I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate
of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
-- F. H. Wales (1936)
%
" I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights
instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is
standing still ..."
-- Steven Wright
%
I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather
dance with the cows till you come home.
-- Groucho Marx
%
"I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps
the time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand ..."
-- Peter Oakley
%
"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it."
%
I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The
curtain was up.
%
"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."
-- Isaac Asimov
%
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."
-- Galileo Galilei
%
"I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
%
"I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians
don't believe in astrology."
-- James R. F. Quirk
%
I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just
a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more
numbers!!
%
I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of
a frog jumping on my Breakfast.
-- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82
%
"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the
nominating"
-- Boss Tweed
%
"I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem."
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
%
"I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of
people waiting to abuse me."
-- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"
%
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
-- Elvis Presley
%
"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
-- Elvis Presley
%
"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd
eat it, and I just hate it."
-- Clarence Darrow
%
"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path."
-- Ronald Mabbitt
%
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the
streets and frighten the horses.
-- Victor Hugo
%
"I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?"
%
"I don't think so," said René Descartes. Just then, he vanished.
%
"I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other
hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."
%
I doubt, therefore I might be.
%
"I drink to make other people interesting."
-- George Jean Nathan
%
I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
so I woke up from sheer boredom.
%
"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words."
%
"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very
reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
-- Gotama Buddha
%
I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *horrifying* 20
minutes of my life!
%
'I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
-- Mae West
%
I get up each morning, gather my wits.
Pick up the paper, read the obits.
If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
%
"I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler
Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!"
-- Mary Lou Bax
%
"I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense."
%
"I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means
it's going to be up all night."
-- Steven Wright
%
"I hate quotations."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
%
"I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it
any time!"
%
"I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show,
which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'."
-- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
%
I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth
and they never believe me.
-- Camillo Di Cavour
%
I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it.
-- Edgar Allan Poe
%
"I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming
that I have never made one."
-- James Gordon Bennett
%
"I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
make it shorter."
-- Blaise Pascal
%
I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole
BODY!
-- from "Cerebus" #82
%
"I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
%
"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."
-- Oscar Wilde
%
"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it
scattered around the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you've seen it.
-- Steven Wright
%
"I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..."
-- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
%
"I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking
his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell
beating up a child."
-- Steven Wright
%
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
-- Poul Anderson
%
"I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere."
%
"I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it."
%
I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!
%
"I just need enough to tide me over until I need more."
-- Bill Hoest
%
I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.
%
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-- Albert Einstein
%
"I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
-- Charles Schulz
%
"I like being single. I'm always there when I need me."
-- Art Leo
%
"I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours."
%
"I like your game but we have to change the rules."
%
"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what
entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."
-- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
%
"I love to eat them Smurfies
Smurfies what I love to eat
Bite they ugly heads off,
Nibble on they bluish feet."
%
"I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but
don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the
speed of light."
-- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk
%
"I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent."
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
%
"I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
week sometimes to make it up."
-- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"
%
I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts
%
"I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do
was to go away."
%
"I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like."
%
I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
-- G. B. Shaw
%
"I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!"
-- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)
%
I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!
%
"I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral
slob."
-- William F. Buckley
%
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.
%
"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."
%
I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope
they do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em.
-- Will Rogers
%
"I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck."
-- Graffito in Los Angeles
%
"I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full
house and four people died."
-- Steven Wright
%
"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to
see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."
-- Shirley Temple
%
"I think it is true for all n. I was just playing it safe with n >= 3
because I couldn't remember the proof."
-- Baker, Pure Math 351a
%
"I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it."
%
"I thought you were trying to get into shape."
"I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle."
%
" ... I told my doctor I got all the exercise I needed being a
pallbearer for all my friends who run and do exercises!"
-- Winston Churchill
%
I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
twenty minutes. It's about Russia.
-- Woody Allen
%
I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.
%
"I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance."
%
"I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure."
%
"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my
body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
-- Emo Phillips
%
I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere
near the place.
-- Steven Wright
%
"I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St.
Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE
HAW"!!'"
-- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County"
%
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
didn't know."
-- Mark Twain
%
I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending
their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to
buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
-- Emile Henry Gauvreay
%
"I was playing poker the other night ... with Tarot cards. I got a full
house and four people died."
-- Steven Wright
%
"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything
specific".
-- Steven Wright
%
"I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in
the shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't
included."
-- Steven Wright
%
"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the
statues that are in all the other museums."
-- Steven Wright
%
I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that
it took seven others to beat him!
%
"I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work."
-- Gallagher
%
"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
always worked for me."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
%
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got
to undo it."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I
snore."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in
`Y.'"
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my
blender."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my
garage door."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from
Julian to Gregorian."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for
static cling."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my
cottage cheese sculpture."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma
transplant."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never
came back."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say
tuned."
%
"I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that
need worrying about."
%
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
%
"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia,
I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun."
-- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H
%
I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd
listen to it!
-- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire
%
"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob.
That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood."
-- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones]
%
"I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from
man."
%
I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!
%
"I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my
sister."
%
I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.
%
"I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did."
%
"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to
die in."
-- George McGovern
%
I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man.
-- Fred Allen
%
I'm going to live forever, or die trying!
-- Spider Robinson
%
... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a
KOSHER DELI!!
%
"I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?"
-- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate
%
i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be
living apart.
-- e. e. cummings
%
"I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.
It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get."
%
"I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday
life."
%
I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is
-- I could be just as proud for half the money.
-- Arthur Godfrey
%
I'm rated PG-34!!
%
"I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again REAL soon ..."
%
"I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it
(your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage."
-- English Professor, Providence College
%
"I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people's
lives"
%
I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand.
%
I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there was
this little hole in the bottom ...
-- John Croll
%
I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
%
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
-- Groucho Marx
%
I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimes
on the same day.
%
"I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer."
%
"I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer"
-- Senator Claghorn
%
IBM had a PL/I,
Its syntax worse than JOSS;
And everywhere this language went,
It was a total loss.
%
Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box
of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
%
Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like
solitary confinement.
%
Idiot Box, n.:
The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the
stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
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"
%
If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape
at about 30 miles/second.
-- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming
%
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law.
-- Roy Santoro
%
"If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far."
-- Paul White
%
If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus
forecast is a camel's behind.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
%
If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y
is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
-- Albert Einstein
%
If a group of N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be N-1
passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager.
-- T. Cheatham
%
If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four
hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where
it votes guilty.
-- Joseph C. Goulden
%
If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake
him up.
%
If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.
%
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular
error.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
%
If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot
platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave
that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska.
%
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
-- Paul Beatty
%
If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
-- William Baumol
%
If anything can go wrong, it will.
%
If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool.
%
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
%
If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four
tellers?
%
"If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?"
%
If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?
%
If everybody minded their own business, the world would go
around a deal faster.
-- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"
%
If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.
%
... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with
the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls
asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ...
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three
to a can.
%
If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.
%
If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet.
%
If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit
Ears.
%
If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their
Heads.
%
If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with
green, baggy skin.
%
If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
%
If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to
invent it.
%
If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger
hands.
%
If God is dead, who will save the Queen?
%
If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?
%
"If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows."
-- Yiddish saying
%
If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs?
-- Marvin Kitman
%
"If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be
replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET!"
%
If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!
-- Samuel Goldwyn
%
If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.
%
If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the
plantation and go home.
-- Eugene P. Gallagher
%
If I had any humility I would be perfect.
-- Ted Turner
%
"If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."
-- Albert Einstein
%
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
%
If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune.
%
If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him.
They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun
of it.
-- Thomas Carlyle
%
If life is a stage, I want some better lighting.
%
If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
-- Tom Robbins
%
If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women
you've got in the house.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by
the page number.
%
If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.
%
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and
Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."
-- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)
%
If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.
-- A. Einstein.
%
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
in my name at a Swiss bank.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
%
If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.
%
If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without
having to accomplish anything.
%
If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad,
he should see how bad it is with representation.
%
If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied
harder.
-- Pope John Paul I
%
"If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem."
-- C. Durance, Computer Science 234
%
If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would
presumably flunk it.
-- Stanley Garn
%
If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
-- Norm Schryer
%
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for
me!"
-- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
%
If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
are 50-50 it will.
%
If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.
%
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that
will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
%
If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?
-- Art Hoppe
%
If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make
something out of you.
-- Muhammad Ali
%
If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it.
%
If this is timesharing, give me my share right now.
%
If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?
%
If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was
yesterday?
%
If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is
doing the thinking.
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson
%
If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
-- Laurence J. Peter
%
"If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely"
%
"If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage."
%
If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel
in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary
qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
-- Marguerite Emmons
%
If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?
-- Ann Edwards-Duff
%
"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
-- J. Paul Getty
%
If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.
%
If you can read this, you're too close.
%
If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.
%
If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a
call.
%
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
%
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
-- Harry S Truman
%
If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?
%
If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
%
If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.
-- Clarence Day
%
If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter.
-- Freeman Dyson
%
"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little
Lavoris in the toilet."
-- Jay Leno
%
If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to
either of you for the rest of the day.
%
"If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to
have to get a toehold in the public eye."
%
If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody
will.
%
If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it
will always do it.
-- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin
%
"If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is
make the rubble bounce"
-- Winston Churchill
%
If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous.
%
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
%
"If you have to hate, hate gently"
%
If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to
boot yourself in the posterior.
-- A. J. Liebling
%
If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.
%
If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
-- Graham Summer
%
If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few
people die past the age of a hundred.
-- George Burns
%
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.
%
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
-- Maslow
%
If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure
can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly
develop.
%
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-- Mark Twain
%
If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine,
you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get
ice, but no cup.
%
If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But
this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is
somehow enobled and none dare criticize it.
%
If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're
the sucker.
%
If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
%
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
%
If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens
tomorrow!
%
If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car
payments.
-- Earl Wilson
%
If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.
-- Arthur Kasspe
%
If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
shopping center in the world?
-- Richard M. Nixon
%
If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
shopping center in the world?
-- Richard Nixon
%
If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them
end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.
-- "Graffiti in the Big Ten"
%
"If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything."
-- A. L.
%
If you want divine justice, die.
-- Nick Seldon
%
If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people
he gave it to.
-- Dorthy Parker
%
If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every
word you say, talk in your sleep.
%
"If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some
memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it,
even if they don't know what it means."
-- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party"
%
If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one.
%
If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for
tomorrow morning, sleep late.
-- Henny Youngman
%
If you're happy, you're successful.
%
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
%
If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
%
If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%?
%
"If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round
it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the
universe?"
%
If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.
-- Ronald Reagan
%
Ignisecond, n.:
The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car
door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!"
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Iles's Law:
There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly
at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
Neither will Iles.
%
Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
land He's trying to ignore.
%
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
-- Jules de Gaultier
%
"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
thinks of complaining."
-- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
%
Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
-- Jack Paar
%
Immortality -- a fate worse than death.
-- Edgar A. Shoaff
%
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the
mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the
Boss is reading it.
%
In 1750 Issac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of
stairs.
%
In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkled
waffles.
%
In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't
get parts.
%
In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The
creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.
%
In 1915 pancake make-up was invented but most people still preferred
syrup.
%
In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only
we can't control when the five year period will begin.
%
In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"
Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.
-- Frank Mankiewicz
%
In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus,
"one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."
-- Mark Twain
%
In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground
with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call
this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.
%
In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one
of the risks he takes.
-- Adlai Stevenson
%
In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own
incompetency
-- The Peter Principle
%
In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
are to be treated as variables.
%
"In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of
nations -- it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir."
-- Stuart Keate
%
In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own
at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public.
%
In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.
%
In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools
will be temporarily canceled.
%
In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and
make it better.
%
In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
to get her attention.
%
In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride
in any motor vehicle.
%
"In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable."
-- Winston Curchill, of Montgomery
%
In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door
neighbor.
%
In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.
%
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but
inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our
programming languages.
%
In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on
the sidewalks when a concert is on.
%
In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your
pocket.
%
In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any
pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while
either flying or waiting to board a plane.
%
In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless
there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red
flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.
%
In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as
to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the
speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
%
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
universe."
-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
%
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government,
intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from
the cares of office.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds
and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane.
%
In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public
view."
%
In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that
is over six feet in length.
%
In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
"In short, N is Richardian if, and only if, N is not Richardian."
%
In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.
%
In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a
moving automobile.
%
In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in
the proper order then why can't he?
%
In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful
Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead
%
In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
-- Alan Perlis
%
In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to
drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at
discotheques.
-- Art Linkletter
%
In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take
my advice.
-- Winston Churchill
%
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
the supervision of a licensed engineer.
%
In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse
along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
%
Incumbent, n.:
Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves
smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is
not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
-- Stephen Crane
%
Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
%
Individualists unite!
%
Information Center, n.:
A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is
to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.
%
Ingrate, n.:
A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of
indigestion.
%
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
%
Innovation is hard to schedule.
-- Dan Fylstra
%
Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
%
Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the
salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon.
%
Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure.
%
Iron Law of Distribution:
Them that has, gets.
%
"Irrationality is the square root of all evil"
-- Douglas Hofstadter
%
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is
meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a
soap bubble?
%
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the
beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get
out, and such as are out wish to get in?
-- Ralph Emerson
%
Is your job running? You'd better go catch it!
%
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?
-- Kelvin Throop III
%
Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune
tellers take economists seriously?
%
It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is
thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have
drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself
that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *only* by amusing oneself that
one can learn."
-- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
%
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have
been searching for evidence which could support this.
-- Bertrand Russell
%
It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
%
It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of
Urbana, Illinois.
%
It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a
pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the
sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.
-- Voltaire
%
It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
coming up it.
-- Henry Allen
%
It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?
One in a million, perhaps.
%
It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark
%
It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three
benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never
to use either.
-- Mark Twain
%
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
-- Rod Serling
%
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
lightly greased."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
%
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice
versa.
%
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
%
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct
one.
%
It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because
if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of
people.
-- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
%
It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood
Boulevard at one time.
%
It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia.
%
It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry
a tune.
-- Woody Allen
%
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
ingenious.
%
It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not
desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
-- Woody Allen
%
It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our
offense consists in doubting it.
-- Justice Robert H. Jackson
%
It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the
problem.
%
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be
privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to
corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.
-- George Bernard Shaw
%
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
-- Gore Vidal
%
It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one
damn thing over and over.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
%
It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
-- Elizabeth Carpenter
%
It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a
pit.
%
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
virginity could be a virtue.
-- Voltaire
%
It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their
dignity.
%
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
%
It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the
lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as
high as the eagle?
%
It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad
crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed
until the other has gone.
%
It is the business of little minds to shrink.
-- Carl Sandburg
%
It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
-- Hawkwind
%
It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for
five straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But
it takes Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you.
%
It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the
future.
%
It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.
%
It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too
good either if you speak when your head is empty.
%
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
warning to others.
%
"It runs like x, where x is something unsavory"
-- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
%
It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the
flag.
%
It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the
municipality.
-- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio
%
"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous."
-- Robert Benchly
%
It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
%
"It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set
foot."
%
It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a
breeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was
broken ...
-- James Dent
%
It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like
the rose and the teeth were in the same glass.
%
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.
%
It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human
nature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
examples.
-- Charles Dickens
%
It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing
warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or
two things still safe to eat.
-- Robert Fuoss
%
It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
-- Andrew Jackson
%
"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone
underwear."
%
It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.
%
"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it."
-- Steven Wright
%
"It's a summons."
"What's a summons?"
"It means summon's in trouble."
-- Rocky and Bullwinkle
%
It's a very *UN*lucky week in which to be took dead.
-- Churchy La Femme
%
It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black.
%
"It's bad luck to be superstitious."
-- Andrew W. Mathis
%
It's better to be wanted for murder that not to be wanted at all.
-- Marty Winch
%
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
%
It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for
being right.
%
"It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an
hour!"
-- Macy's
%
It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.
%
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
%
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
-- Walt Disney
%
It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong
direction.
%
"It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name."
%
It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre.
-- Sam Goldwyn
%
It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how
to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.
-- George Burns
%
It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.
-- Phil White
%
"It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either."
-- Kevin White, mayor of Boston
%
It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too.
-- Alexander Korda
%
"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass."
-- Cal Keegan
%
It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's
what you're taking for it...
%
It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off
the ground.
-- Daniel B. Luten
%
It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it
happens.
-- Woody Allen
%
It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips.
-- Garfield
%
It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that
English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many
other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
-- Sydney J. Harris
%
It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
%
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
%
It's so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the
Devil when he is the only explanation of it.
%
It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which
raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody
not to.
-- Franklin P. Jones
%
It's the thought, if any, that counts!
%
Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government:
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the
legislature is in session.
%
James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total
indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
-- Tom Stoppard
%
Jenkinson's Law:
It won't work.
%
Jesus Saves,
Moses Invests,
But only Buddha pays Dividends.
%
Job Placement, n.:
Telling your boss what he can do with your job.
%
Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes!
%
Johnson's First Law:
When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
most inconvenient possible time.
%
Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called
"Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do
anything loses.
%
Join the march to save individuality!
%
Jone's Law:
The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone
to blame it on.
%
Jone's Motto:
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
%
Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac
(and nobody cares about it).
-- Bill Joy 6/21/85
%
Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has
changed.
-- Irene Peter
%
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.
%
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he
knows what it is.
%
Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you
get a prompt, type like hell.
%
"Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
immune to bullets"
-- The Brigader, "Dr. Who"
%
"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some
of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?"
-- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US
%
Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to
twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
%
Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a
faster rat!!!
%
Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven!
-- Michael J. Wagner
%
Justice is incidental to law and order.
-- J. Edgar Hoover
%
Justice, n.:
A decision in your favor.
%
Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to
wear tail lights.
%
Katz' Law:
Man and nations will act rationally when all other
possibilities have been exhausted.
%
Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans.
%
Keep Cool, but Don't Freeze
- Hellman's Mayonnaise
%
Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.
%
Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.
%
Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College:
Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students,
and parking for the faculty.
%
Kin, n.:
An affliction of the blood
%
"Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack."
%
Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through
any of its streets.
%
Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic.
%
Kiss your keyboard goodbye!
%
Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.
%
Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within.
%
Kleptomaniac, n.:
A rich thief.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
%
Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.
-- Henry N. Camp
%
Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr):
The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Labor, n.:
One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Lackland's Laws:
(1) Never be first.
(2) Never be last.
(3) Never volunteer for anything
%
Lactomangulation, n.:
Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly
that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Laetrile is the pits
%
Langsam's Laws:
(1) Everything depends.
(2) Nothing is always.
(3) Everything is sometimes.
%
Larkinson's Law:
All laws are basically false.
%
"Last night, I came home and realized that everything in my apartment
had been stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate. I told this to
my friend -- he said, `Do I know you?'"
-- Steven Wright
%
"Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a police
record. I said, no, but I have the new DEVO album. Cops have no sense
of humor."
%
Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won.
%
Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
%
"Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
-- Victor Borge
%
Law of Communications:
The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications
between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of
misunderstanding.
%
Law of Probable Dispersal:
Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly
distributed.
%
Law of the Perversity of Nature:
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the
bread to butter.
%
Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats --
approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
%
Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.
%
Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and
everything else follows in the same way.
-- Alan J. Perlis
%
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
%
Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the
fun?
%
Leibowitz's Rule:
When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you
hold the hammer with both hands.
%
Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday.
%
"Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a
number. You're two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash
and another number."
-- James Estes
%
Lewis's Law of Travel:
The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to
anyone, ever.
%
Liar, n.:
A lawyer with a roving commission.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
%
LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22)
Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your
desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and
polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that.
%
Lie, n.:
A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one
discovered to date.
%
Lieberman's Law:
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
%
Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
%
Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string.
%
"Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to
eat it nevertheless."
-- Flaubert
%
"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it."
%
Life is like a simile.
%
Life is like an analogy
%
Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find
there is nothing in it.
%
"Life is too important to take seriously."
-- Corky Siegel
%
"Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
which I disapprove."
%
"Life to you is a bold and dashing responsibility"
-- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie
%
"Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it
weren't for other people"
-- Blore
%
Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
%
"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
-- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made
sense from things she found in gift shops.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
%
Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
-- Alan McKay
%
Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations.
%
Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night.
-- Candice Bergen
%
Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip
around the Sun.
%
Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted
before.
%
Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And plunged it deep into the VAX;
Don't you envy people who
Do all the things YOU want to do?
%
Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these
interest rates, we don't need it."
%
Lockwood's Long Shot:
The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't
one in a million, but once would be enough.
%
Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *awful*.
%
... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and
legally ... impeccable!
%
Look out! Behind you!
%
Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us
to pay income taxes, too?
-- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox
%
Loose bits sink chips.
%
Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA,
BOOGA!"
%
Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy.
%
Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in
Halstead, Kansas.
%
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
%
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
%
Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
world has ever seen.
%
Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder.
-- Sigmund Freud
%
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
-- Matt Groening
%
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
the ideal never goes unpunished."
-- Goethe
%
Love is sentimental measles.
%
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes.
%
Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.
-- Louise Beal
%
Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up
to.
%
Lowery's Law:
If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing
anyway.
%
LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand.
%
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
There's always one more bug.
%
Lunatic Asylum, n.:
The place where optimism most flourishes.
%
Lysistrata had a good idea.
%
"MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into
the smallest amount of thoughts."
-- Winston Churchill
%
Machine-Independent, adj.:
Does not run on any existing machine.
%
Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate,
and play games -- but not with pleasure.
-- Leo Rosten
%
Mad, adj.:
Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ...
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them
first for seven hours, they always come out tender.
-- W. C. Fields
%
Magnocartic, adj.:
Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping
carts.
-- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
%
Magpie, n.:
A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it
might be taught to talk.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Main's Law:
For every action there is an equal and opposite government
program.
%
Maintainer's Motto:
If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.
%
Majority, n.:
That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.
%
Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!
%
Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
%
"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
-- Lily Tomlin
%
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called
upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
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
%
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
-- Mark Twain
%
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
-- Samuel Butler
%
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
-- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
%
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it
is an enemy.
-- Albert Einstein
%
Mandrell: "You know what I think?"
Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you
don't think, right?"
-- Dr. Who
%
Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery:
Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a
simple yes or no answer.
%
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
-- Voltaire
%
Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on
the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam
dancing.
-- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83
%
Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant.
-- Malcolm Smith
%
Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated.
-- R. Drabek
%
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something
entirely different.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
%
"Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence."
%
Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a
receipt.
%
Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
-- Jules Feiffer
%
May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts
%
May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!
%
May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.
%
May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
Thousand Caramels.
%
Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology.
-- R. S. Barton
%
Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge
it.
%
McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom:
If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not
$19.95.
%
Meader's Law:
Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to
everyone you know, only more so.
%
Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
%
Meeting, n.:
An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or
department not represented in the room must solve a problem.
%
Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American:
The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.
%
Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American:
The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the
cork makes when it is popped.
%
Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American:
All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.
%
Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American:
Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that
is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can
never hope to acquire it.
%
Menu, n.:
A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.
%
Meskimen's Law:
There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to
do it over.
%
MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched.
%
Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it.
%
Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch.
%
Micro Credo:
Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
%
"Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been
watching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks."
%
"Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you
out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles."
%
Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?"
Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO
inconsiderate."
-- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury"
%
Miksch's Law:
If a string has one end, then it has another end.
%
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
-- Groucho Marx
%
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
-- Groucho Marx
%
Millihelen, adj:
The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.
%
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with
themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
%
Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner.
%
Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap
pistols; they may buy shotguns freely, however.
%
Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.
%
Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
-- Russell Baker
%
Misfortune, n.:
The kind of fortune that never misses.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Miss, n.:
A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that
they are in the market.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.
%
Mitchell's Law of Committees:
Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are
held to discuss it.
%
Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
%
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.
%
Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis:
If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented
it wasn't worth doing.
%
Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.
%
Monday, n.:
In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
%
Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots
%
Money is the root of all wealth.
%
Moon, n.:
1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to
hackers. See PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC).
%
Mophobia, n.:
Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian.
%
More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One
path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
-- Woody Allen
%
Mosher's Law of Software Engineering:
Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd
be out of a job.
%
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently
than they do.
-- Turgenev
%
Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
-- Frank Zappa
%
Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
-- Arnold Bennett
%
Mother is the invention of necessity.
%
Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before.
%
Mr. Cole's Axiom:
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the
population is growing.
%
Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
work.
%
Murphy's Law of Research:
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
%
"Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem ..."
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
%
Mustgo, n.:
Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so
long it has become a science project.
-- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
%
"My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on
it."
-- "Grendel", by John Gardner
%
"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless
there are three other people."
-- Orson Welles
%
"My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?"
-- MadameX
%
My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been
one.
-- Groucho Marx
%
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
%
... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling
Alley!!
%
"My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling
Alley!!"
-- Zippy the Pinhead
%
My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not
signed.
-- Christopher Morley
%
"My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies"
%
Naeser's Law:
You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it
damnfoolproof.
%
Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant
said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next
time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone
might steal it."
%
Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to
serve him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk
into your shop?" "Of course." "Have you ever seen me before?"
"Never." "Then how do you know it was me?"
%
Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful
than the sun." "Why?", he was asked. "Because at night we need the
light more."
%
Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it
cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.
-- Fran Leibowitz
%
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln
%
Necessity is a mother.
%
Neckties strangle clear thinking.
-- Lin Yutang
%
Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.
%
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
%
Never call a man a fool; borrow from him.
%
Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.
%
Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off
%
Never eat more than you can lift.
-- Miss Piggy
%
Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
%
Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
%
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
-- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"
%
Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to
make it complex and wonderful.
%
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with
substance.
-- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977
%
Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together.
%
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a
law against it by that time.
%
Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower.
%
Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
%
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
%
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes.
-- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS
%
"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon."
%
Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's
supposed to do.
-- R. A. Heinlein
%
New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
%
New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in
any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.
%
New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within.
%
New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area.
-- Monty Python's Big Red Book
%
New systems generate new problems.
%
New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and
his wife most often reminds him to act it.
-- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary
%
New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors.
%
New York's got the ways and means;
Just won't let you be.
-- The Grateful Dead
%
Newlan's Truism:
An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government
economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
%
NEWS FLASH!!
Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West
German pole-vault champion.
%
*** NEWSFLASH ***
Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!
%
Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
%
Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law:
A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
%
Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't
have a lucky day this year.
%
Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying
as an income tax refund.
-- F. J. Raymond
%
"Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."
-- Foghorn Leghorn
%
Nihilism should commence with oneself.
%
Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name
correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into
(Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but
Americans call him by value.
%
"Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they
would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect
that much."
-- Augustine
%
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
%
"Nirvana? Thats the place where the powers that be and their friends
hang out.
-- Zonker Harris
%
No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless
absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.
-- Fran Lebowitz
%
No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a
camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform
effectively under such difficult conditions.
-- Laurence J. Peter
%
No good deed goes unpunished.
-- Clare Boothe Luce
%
No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
eating one peanut.
-- Channing Pollock
%
No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
%
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will
seriously cramp his style.
%
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
%
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
%
"No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid."
%
No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval
system, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of
the author.
-- Chris Shaw
%
No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
%
No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere.
%
"No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of
paper."
-- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was
taken over by Rupert Murdoch
%
No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider
the furniture!
-- Sherlock Holmes
%
"No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'"
-- Dr. Who
%
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing
it.
-- Tallulah Bankhead
%
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
%
Nobody said computers were going to be polite.
%
Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with
constructive praise.
%
Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
Negative expectations yield negative results.
Positive expectations yield negative results.
%
Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
%
Noncombatant, n.:
A dead Quaker.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
%
"Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong."
%
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
%
"Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none."
-- Shakespeare
%
"Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper
is from the wrong kind of tree."
-- Professor W.
%
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
%
Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.
%
Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...
To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the
light comes on.
%
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
-- Andrew Young
%
Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires
tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
-- Nero Wolfe
%
Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.
Conscience makes egotists of us all.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
Nothing recedes like success.
-- Walter Winchell
%
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited
love.
-- Charlie Brown
%
November, n.:
The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.
%
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the double lock will keep;
May no brick through the window break,
And, no one rob me till I awake.
%
"Now is the time for all good men to come to."
-- Walt Kelly
%
"Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called
Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that
were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..."
-- "The Begatting of a President"
%
"Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a
smurfette."
-- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354
%
"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile."
-- Karl Lehenbauer
%
"Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
normal routines, for children and adults alike."
-- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"
%
"Nuclear war would really set back cable."
-- Ted Turner
%
[Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable.
-- Edwin Meese III
%
Nudists are people who wear one-button suits.
%
(null cookie; hope that's ok)
%
Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're
guessing.
%
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Murphy was an optimist.
%
"Of course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a
fake?"
%
Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
amount of hot air.
-- Thomas L. Martin
%
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
-- Plato
%
"Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power
tools aren't soluble in alcohol ..."
-- Crazy Nigel
%
Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.
%
Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
blazer.
%
Office Automation, n.:
The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone
you would want to talk with over coffee.
%
Ogden's Law:
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch
up.
%
Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo!
%
Oh don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and none goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
%
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
I muck with indices and structs all day
And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
%
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
be irresponsible, too.
-- Lichty & Wagner
%
Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.
%
Oh, wow! Look at the moon!
%
"OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard."
-- Dr. Joy
%
OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
%
Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
-- Trotsky
%
Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address.
%
Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.
%
Oliver's Law:
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
it.
%
Omnibiblious, adj.:
Indifferent to type of drink. "Oh, you can get me anything.
I'm omnibiblious."
%
OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of
JELL-O and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th' WRENCH in the JELL-O
as if it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... or ... I ... um ...
WHERE'S the WASHING MACHINES?
%
On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:
"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
-- Wolfgang Pauli
%
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
what it does.
-- Will Rogers
%
On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created jerks.
-- Avery
%
On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created jerks.
-- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"
%
On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
POINT ...
%
On-line, adj.:
The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a
computer.
%
Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.
-- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"
%
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict,
Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your
principals or your mistress".
%
Once, adv.:
Enough.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
somebody's listening.
-- Franklin P. Jones
%
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
%
One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing
how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
-- Professor Charles P. Issawi
%
One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
when well oiled.
%
One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
never have to stop and answer the phone.
%
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
-- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
%
One learns to itch where one can scratch.
-- Ernest Bramah
%
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
%
One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How
will it live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net,
I'll tell you."
%
One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
%
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to
do and always a clever thing to say.
-- Will Durant
%
"... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs."
-- Robert Firth
%
One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God
create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "somebody has to buy
retail."
-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
%
The Seventh Commandments for Technicians
Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy
fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in
other ways.
%
The First Commandment for Technicians:
Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged
capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most
untechnician-like manner.
%
One Page Principle:
A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch
paper cannot be understood.
-- Mark Ardis
%
"One planet is all you get."
%
One seldom sees a monument to a committee.
%
One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh
paint.
%
"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
%
One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a
new model.
%
One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
%
One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned
at the stake while the votes were being counted.
-- Thomas B. Reed
%
One-Shot Case Study, n.:
The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which
it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes
green.
%
Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps.
%
Only God can make random selections.
%
Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to
use the editorial "we."
%
Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.
%
Optimization hinders evolution.
%
Optimization hinders evolution.
%
Oregano, n.:
The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.
%
Oregon, n.:
Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday
night.
%
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry
is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
-- Mike Adams
%
Osborn's Law:
Variables won't; constants aren't.
%
Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your
nails.
%
Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
they charge fifteen cents for them.
%
Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
In kernel as it is in user!
%
Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
-- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries
%
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
-- Alex Schure
%
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
-- Alex Schure
%
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
-- General Omar N. Bradley
%
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
it's too dark to read."
-- Groucho Marx
%
Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
I can remember things that *have* happened before ...
%
Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!
%
Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
%
Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated.
%
Painting, n.:
The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
exposing them to the critic.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
panic: can't find /
%
panic: kernel trap (ignored)
%
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much
better.
-- Laurie Anderson
%
Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
%
Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.
%
Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.
%
Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to
criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
-- D. J. Hicks
%
Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction.
%
Parker's Law:
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
%
Parkinson's Fifth Law:
If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
%
Parkinson's Fourth Law:
The number of people in any working group tends to increase
regardless of the amount of work to be done.
%
Parsley
is gharsley.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
%
"Pascal is not a high-level language."
-- Steven Feiner
%
"Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat."
-- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340
%
Pascal Users:
To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.
%
Pascal, n.:
A programming language named after a man who would turn over in
his grave if he knew about it.
%
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
-- Eric Hoffer
%
Patageometry, n.:
The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
under brain transplants.
%
Paul Revere was a tattle-tale
%
Paul's Law:
In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you
save.
%
Paul's Law:
You can't fall off the floor.
%
Peace, n.:
In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
periods of fighting.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Pecor's Health-Food Principle:
Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in
it.
%
Pedaeration, n.:
The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the
sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Penguin Trivia #46:
Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
-- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
%
People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
-- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
%
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of
the future.
%
"People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense."
-- Ken Kesey
%
People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.
%
People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better
press than people who are just funny and smart.
-- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"
%
People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never
slept in a room with a single mosquito.
%
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who
haven't what they want that they don't want it.
-- Ogden Nash
%
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that
Benjamin Franklin said it first.
%
People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
%
People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they
did yesterday.
%
Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
"Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
-- Aelius Donatus
%
Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.
%
Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
when there is no longer anything to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
%
Personifiers Unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!
%
Peter's Law of Substitution:
Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after
themselves.
%
Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
exciting Camden, New Jersey.
%
Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny.
%
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
-- John Keats
%
Pick another fortune cookie.
%
"Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional
hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational
sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ..."
%
Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
-- Don Marquis
%
PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the
solution set.
-- E. W. Dijkstra
%
"Plaese porrf raed."
-- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase
%
Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill
them.
%
Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic
table.
-- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
%
Please ignore previous fortune.
%
Please take note:
%
Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?
%
Pohl's law:
Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
%
Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.
%
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even
where there is no river.
-- Nikita Khrushchev
%
Politics is like coaching a football team. you have to be smart enough
to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
%
Polymer physicists are into chains.
%
Portable, adj.:
Survives system reboot.
%
Positive, adj.:
Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
%
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat"
-- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987
%
Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically.
%
Power, n:
The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA.
%
Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
more time for dreaming.
-- J. P. McEvoy
%
Predestination was doomed from the start.
%
President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and
forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax.
%
President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the
vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
-- The Washington Post
%
Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
%
Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
It's on the other side.
%
[Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves
to see him work.
-- Winston Churchill
%
Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
%
Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data
encryption standard and they came up with ...
Student: EBCDIC!"
%
Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem.
Eng. 130 midterm. Once again no student received a single point on
his exam. Newell has now tossed five shutouts this quarter. Newell's
earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%
%
"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller
than the both put together."
%
Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check
three friends. If they're OK, you're it.
%
Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well
anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off of the TV screen.
%
Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.
%
Pushing 40 is exercise enough.
%
Put no trust in cryptic comments.
%
Put your Nose to the Grindstone!
-- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.
%
Putt's Law:
Technology is dominated by two types of people:
Those who understand what they do not manage.
Those who manage what they do not understand.
%
Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is?
A: One per person.
%
Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
%
Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ?
A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
%
Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb
in San Francisco?
A: Both of them.
%
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.
%
Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
%
Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One and a half.
%
Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
to the earlier joke.
%
Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those
Californians trying to share the experience.
%
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
with brightly colored machine tools.
%
Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
of the way.
%
Q: What's a light-year?
A: One-third less calories than a regular year.
%
Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.
%
Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home.
%
Quality Control, n.:
The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off
a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works.
%
Question:
Man Invented Alcohol,
God Invented Grass.
Who do you trust?
%
Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!
%
Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!
%
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
%
Quigley's Law:
Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
atttempt to use it.
%
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
`
%
"Qvid me anxivs svm?"
%
Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
%
Ray's Rule of Precision:
Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
%
Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
with pictures.
%
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
Congress. But I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain
%
Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic
value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is
much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice
this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.
%
Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware
has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing
machines are so poor at I/O.
%
Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are
so long they can't afford the disk space.
%
Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write
in anything less portable than a number two pencil.
%
Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker
with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they
hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for
applications.)
%
Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run
on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo
sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.
%
Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured
programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet-
trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise
clear desks.
%
Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine
doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell
quiche.
%
Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it
should be hard to understand.
%
Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
much good it did them.
%
Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires
you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers
wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly
spring up in the middle of the machine room.
%
Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write
in BASIC after reaching puberty.
%
Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress
freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who
wear white socks.
%
Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who
can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.
%
Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.
%
Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use
functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?
%
Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness.
This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a
computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.
%
Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the
job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like
using an undocumented external procedure.
%
Real Time, adj.:
Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there
and then.
%
Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
afraid to break your face.
%
Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts
down the system for days.
%
Real Users hate Real Programmers.
%
Real Users know your home telephone number.
%
Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your
program doesn't deliver it.
%
Real Users never use the Help key.
%
Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs.
%
Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.
%
Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?
-- Patrick Sky
%
Reality is for people who lack imagination.
%
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
%
Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity.
-- Alvy Ray Smith
%
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go
away".
-- Philip K. Dick
%
"Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!"
%
Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than
being flat broke and having a stomach ache.
-- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
%
Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia:
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
%
Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
-- Anatole France
%
"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used
it."
-- Dave Barry
%
Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be
worse in Cleveland.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good
offense!
%
Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat.
%
Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.
%
Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
-- Dave Butler
%
Renning's Maxim:
Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.
%
Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western
Civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
%
Reporter, n.:
A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a
tempest of words.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher von Braun
%
Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
another chance later on.
%
"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."
-- Steven Wright
%
Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention
Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will
reject the proposal.
%
Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.
-- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With
Pogo"
%
ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-
door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.
%
Rudin's Law:
If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it
every time.
%
Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London:
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 of Creative Research:
(1) Never draw what you can copy.
(2) Never copy what you can trace.
(3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.
%
Rule of Defactualization:
Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
%
Rule of Feline Frustration:
When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
%
Rule of the Great:
When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep
thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.
%
Rules for Academic Deans:
(1) HIDE!!!!
(2) If they find you, LIE!!!!
-- Father Damian C. Fandal
%
Rules:
(1) The boss is always right.
(2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.
%
San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.
-- Herb Caen
%
San Francisco, n.:
Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse.
%
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.
-- Mark Harrold
%
Satellite Safety Tip #14:
If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.
%
Sattinger's Law:
It works better if you plug it in.
%
Sauron is alive in Argentina!
%
Save energy: be apathetic.
%
Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda.
%
Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
%
"Saw a sign on a restaurant that said Breakfast, any time -- so I
ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.
-- Steven Wright
%
SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
-- Ken Thompson
%
Schapiro's Explanation:
The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's
because they use more manure.
%
Schizophrenia beats being alone.
%
Schlattwhapper, n.:
The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down,
hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Schnuffel, n.:
A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in
mixed company.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Schwiggle, n.:
The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a
pencil.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made
of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts
is not necessarily science.
-- Henri Poincairé
%
Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
%
Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.
-- William Buckley
%
SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21)
You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will
achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of
ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered.
%
Scott's first Law:
No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
%
Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.
%
Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the
Presidency.
-- Richard Nixon
%
Security check: INTRUDER ALERT!
%
"See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..."
%
Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine:
Ice Cream cures all ills.
%
Self Test for Paranoia:
You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's
your own fault.
%
Seminars, n.:
From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion.
%
Senate, n.:
A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
misdemeanors.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
Serenity through viciousness.
%
Serocki's Stricture:
Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
%
Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
%
Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.
%
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
-- Swami X
%
Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.
-- M. C. Reed.
%
Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
it's one of the best.
-- Woody Allen
%
Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off
during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
-- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
Teen Should Know"
%
Shaw's Principle:
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
want to use it.
%
"She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to."
-- Gypsy Rose Lee
%
She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot.
-- Mark Twain
%
She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them
were bad.
%
She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could
have poured on a waffle ...
%
"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing,
you should hear me play piano.'"
-- Morrisey
%
She's genuinely bogus.
%
"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
%
SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!
%
Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is
playing golf with his boss.
%
Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.
%
Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.
-- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet
%
Silverman's Law:
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
%
Simon's Law:
Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
%
Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're
alive.
-- John Sloan
%
Since we're all here, we must not be all there.
-- Bob "Mountain" Beck
%
[Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
vices I admire.
-- Winston Churchill
%
Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor):
That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to,
or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should
have gotten.
%
Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes
to work.
%
Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
%
Slurm, n.:
The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
it sits in the dish too long.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
-- Fletcher Knebel
%
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
-- Fletcher Knebel
%
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in
praise of intelligence.
-- Bertrand Russell
%
So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever
remember his Bible?
%
Sodd's Second Law:
Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is
bound to occur.
%
Software, n.:
Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
%
Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit.
%
Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.
-- Ed Howe
%
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some
people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
-- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
%
Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only
one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."
%
Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit
them on the head.
%
Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.
%
Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when
you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even
worse.
-- Avery
%
Some programming languages manage to absorb change but withstand
progress.
%
Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand
progress.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the
pens will multiply instead of disappear.
%
Someone will try to honk your nose today.
%
"Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm
the only ashtray."
%
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
-- Lily Tomlin
%
Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering.
%
Song Title of the Week:
"They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change
in me."
%
Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. (Those who have already
paid may disregard this fortune).
%
Sorry, no fortune this time.
%
Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.
%
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the
road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
-- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
"Spare no expense to save money on this one."
-- Samuel Goldwyn
%
Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers:
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.
%
Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword.
%
Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.
-- Dave Millman
%
"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy."
%
Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading:
The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the
number of times you have looked at it.
%
Spelling is a lossed art.
%
Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers.
%
Spirtle, n.:
The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in
your eye.
-- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
%
Spouse, n.:
Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you
wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.
%
Stay away from flying saucers today.
%
Stay away from hurricanes for a while.
%
"Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly."
%
Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have
another drink.
%
Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to
handle.
%
Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.
%
Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only
take a bath ...
%
Stult's Report:
Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is
fight the solutions.
%
Stupid, n.:
Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
%
Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?
%
Sturgeon's Law:
90% of everything is crud.
%
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
%
Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way
before it is understood.
%
Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.
%
Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar
without his duck ...
%
Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!
%
Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy.
%
Support your local police force -- steal!!
%
Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost.
%
Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead!
%
Surprise due today. Also the rent.
%
Surprise your boss. Get to work on time.
%
Swahili, n.:
The language used by the National Enquirer to print their
retractions.
-- Johnny Hart
%
Sweater, n.:
A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.
%
Swipple's Rule of Order:
He who shouts the loudest has the floor.
%
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad
infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
hole in his head.
%
Tact, n.:
The unsaid part of what you're thinking.
%
Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way.
%
Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting
enough cheese
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Take it easy, we're in a hurry.
%
Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it
needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
-- Kipling
%
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"
%
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
-- Euripides
%
Talkers are no good doers.
-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
%
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20)
You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged
determination and work like hell. Most people think you are
stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist.
%
Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
the tree."
-- Russell Long
%
Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself
out of the market.
%
Taxes, n.:
Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get
an extension.
%
Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he
grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway.
%
Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.
%
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means
for going backwards.
-- Aldous Huxley
%
Telephone, n.:
An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop
writing.
-- R. Geis
%
Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.
%
Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.
%
"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
one which cannot be justified on any other grounds."
-- J. Finnegan, USC.
%
Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future.
-- Pogo, by Walt Kelly
%
"That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver"
-- Foghorn Leghorn
%
"That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all."
%
That secret you've been guarding, isn't.
%
That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy.
%
The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by
people who want some.
-- Dwight MacDonald
%
The Abrams' Principle:
The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.
%
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper
-- Thomas Jefferson
%
"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug
someone with it."
-- M. Devine, Computer Science 340
%
The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas
River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little
Rock.
%
The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion.
Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed
and color, but also on ability.
-- T. Lehrer
%
The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe.
-- Bill Murray
%
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use
in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the
Declaration not for that, but for future use.
-- Abraham Lincoln
%
The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m.
%
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the
average man can see better than he can think.
%
"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by
people who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried
anything."
-- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore
%
The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";
but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
%
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
-- W. C. Fields
%
The best defense against logic is ignorance.
%
The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.
%
The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
is a match.
-- Will Rogers
%
The bigger the theory the better.
%
The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse
time.
-- Merrick Furst
%
"The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch."
%
The bogosity meter just pegged.
%
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
%
The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development:
To determine how long it will take to write and debug a
program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and
convert to the next higher units.
%
The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.
Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in
automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.
-- Art Buchwald
%
The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding
bureaucracy.
%
"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the
flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language."
%
"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."
-- G. Fitch
%
The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up
at the steam fitters' picnic.
%
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
%
The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions.
-- Alfred Adler
%
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will
walk carefully.
-- Russian Proverb
%
"The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live
elsewhere."
%
"The Computer made me do it."
%
The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
-- Alan Perlis
%
The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his
memos.
-- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
%
The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other
subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up
every bird watcher in the country.
-- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972
%
The Consultant's Curse:
When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him
what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong
medicine, and is normally only required once.
%
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
%
The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going
down.
%
The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to
eat.
-- John McNulty
%
The Crown is full of it!
-- Nate Harris, 1775
%
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
%
The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of
us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching
Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.
%
The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
%
The devil finds work for idle circuits to do.
%
"The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell
into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him
out again, it would be a calamity."
-- Benjamin Disraeli
%
The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science
requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require
scholarship.
-- Robert Heinlein
%
The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on
a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets.
%
The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man
really clever who has not found that he is stupid.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterson
%
The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late
and owns the worm farm.
-- Travis McGee
%
The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.
%
The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
add ten percent.
%
The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on
weather forecasters.
-- Jean-Paul Kauffmann
%
"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not
Compute' -- I forget which."
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of
civilization.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
%
The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with
symposium to follow.
%
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach
their children to speak it.
-- G. B. Shaw
%
The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a
remarkable Christian forbearance among men.
-- Ambrose Bierce
%
The fact that it works is immaterial.
-- L. Ogborn
%
The faster we go, the rounder we get.
-- The Grateful Dead
%
The Fifth Rule:
You have taken yourself too seriously.
%
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
-- Abbie Hoffman
%
The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of
management is that success equals skill.
-- Robert Heller
%
"The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your
hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do."
-- McCloctnik the Lucid
%
The first time, it's a KLUDGE!
The second, a trick.
Later, it's a well-established technique!
-- Mike Broido, Intermetrics
%
The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by
a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities.
%
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and
vinyl."
-- Dave Barry
%
The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the
number of your kids by 32 teeth.
%
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
chance.
%
The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness.
%
The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the
center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South
Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South
End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
%
The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled
today.
%
The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
least until we've finished building it.
%
The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature
is to build better mice.
%
The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him
love and he invented marriage.
%
THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
The one who has the gold makes the rules.
%
The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got
to be good.
%
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
-- Benjamin Franklin.
%
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
%
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
-- Albert Einstein
%
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom
whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary,
nohow.
%
The Heineken Uncertainty Principle:
You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.
%
The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent
thinkers.
%
The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back,
which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at
least 5000 years old."
%
The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
lists of "Ten Best".
-- H. Allen Smith
%
"The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and
has gills through which it can see."
-- Monty Python
%
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity
-- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
%
The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
protein -- it rejects it.
-- P. Medawar
%
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
-- Mark Twain
%
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
procession but carrying a banner.
-- Mark Twain
%
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
-- Ashley Montagu
%
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
-- Ashley Montague
%
"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different."
-- Franco Spisani
%
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit
longer."
-- Henry Kissinger
%
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
-- Will Rogers
%
The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important
point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly
important thing to people.
-- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King
%
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the
number of participants.
-- Adam Walinsky
%
The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided
by the number of people in the group.
%
The Kennedy Constant:
Don't get mad -- get even.
%
The Killer Ducks are coming!!!
%
"The last time somebody said, `I find I can write much better with a
word processor.', I replied, `They used to say the same thing about
drugs.'
-- Roy Blount, Jr.
%
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the
law free.
-- Henry David Thoreau
%
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
%
The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching
train.
%
The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon.
%
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get
much sleep.
-- Woody Allen
%
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
-- Henry Kissinger
%
"The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as
we could with both of them."
-- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
%
The makers may make
and the users may use,
but the fixers must fix
with but minimal clues
%
The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the
crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no
one has ever been.
-- Alan Ashley-Pitt
%
The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
-- Mark Twain.
%
The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a
soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which
when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.
%
"... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..."
-- Dave Barry
%
The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
%
The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to
devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation.
-- Lew Mammel, Jr.
%
The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything.
-- Laurence J. Peter
%
The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.
-- Nicol Williamson
%
The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.
%
The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away.
%
"The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the
lower the mailing cost."
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
%
The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and
robbers there will be.
-- Lao Tsu
%
The more things change, the more they stay insane.
%
The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us
is right.
%
The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
-- Andy Warhol
%
"The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and
to watch someone else do it wrong without comment."
-- Theodore H. White
%
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
-- Isaac Asimov
%
The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
%
... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!
%
"The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in
1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert."
-- D. Letterman
%
The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says:
Support your right to bare arms!
%
The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I
hope I don't get run over again.
%
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
choose from.
-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
%
The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the
80-column card.
-- Dennis M. Ritchie
%
The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are
correct.
-- Ralph Hartley
%
The Official MBA Handbook on business cards:
Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm,
Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate
Planning."
%
The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.
%
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
brings wisdom.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader
catch his own breath.
-- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
%
The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when
to cringe.
%
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the
`social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
-- Ernest Rutherford
%
The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop
and take a rest.
%
"The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon."
-- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
Over and Over"
%
The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it.
%
The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber
has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture,
finished, and put inside boxes.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
%
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any
use to oneself.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up
until 5 or 6 p.m.
%
The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
-- Bohr
%
The optimum committee has no members.
-- Norman Augustine
%
The optimum committee has no members.
-- Norman Augustine
%
"The other day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven ... I almost
went back in time."
-- Steven Wright
%
The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because
it isn't here.
-- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)
%
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it
were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.
-- David Lardner
%
"The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more
often."
%
The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by his
brother's remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is
Jews!". Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers.
-- Baltimore, Channel 11 News, on Jimmy Carter
%
The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday
they might force their beliefs on us.
-- Mario Cuomo
%
The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough
voters to win the next election.
%
... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from
other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in
charity we can only call "inhuman."
-- R. A. Lafferty
%
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the
stupidity of your action.
%
The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go
to erase it.
-- Glaser and Way
%
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
%
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
%
The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's:
"My brain is paged out to my liver"
%
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella,
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
%
The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is
cursed.
%
The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.
%
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw
%
The revolution will not be televised.
%
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
-- Emerson
%
The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This
means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
%
"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests
and to his imagination for his facts."
-- Sheridan
%
The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
-- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
%
"The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the
House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights
you have and what rights you have not got."
-- J. Parnell Thomas
%
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with
sloppy analysis!
%
The Roman Rule
The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the
one who is doing it.
%
The rule on staying alive as a forcaster is to give 'em a number or
give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.
-- Jane Bryant Quinn
%
"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"
%
The scum also rises.
-- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
%
The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land.
%
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
-- Noelie Alito
%
"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."
%
"The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their
money."
-- Ed Bluestone, "The National Lampoon"
%
"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!"
%
The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be
able to correct them.
-- Nicolaides
%
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
%
The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.
%
The steady state of disks is full.
-- Ken Thompson
%
The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make
them unsafe.
-- Mayor Frank Rizzo
%
"The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and
is an emerging underachiever."
%
The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant
biology.
%
"The subspace W inherits the other 8 properties of V. And there aren't
even any property taxes."
-- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b
%
The sum of the Universe is zero.
%
The superfluous is very necessary.
-- Voltaire
%
The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
-- Mark Twain
%
The Third Law of Photography:
If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined
when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark
leaks out.
%
The trouble with a kitten is that
When it grows up, it's always a cat
-- Ogden Nash.
%
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
%
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate
it.
-- Franklin P. Jones
%
The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing
more important to do.
%
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
appreciates how difficult it was.
%
The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths.
-- Ken Kesey
%
The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie.
-- Lenny Bruce
%
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And
vice versa.
%
"The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and
stupidity."
%
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more
annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are
"100 percent American"...
-- U. S. Army (1945)
%
The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to
everybody and still nobody likes him.
-- Jim Samuels
%
The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be
broken.
%
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the
combination is locked up in the safe.
-- Peter DeVries
%
The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie
Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said
to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his
decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."
%
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offense.
-- E. W. Dijkstra
%
The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes
the worst cigars.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid
prejudice.
-- Mark Twain
%
"The voters have spoken, the bastards ..."
%
"The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes,
it's just a tired feeling:"
%
The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth.
%
"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity
that would be clearly understood."
-- Alexander Haig
%
"The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start
with a large fortune."
%
The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
%
The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
%
The world is coming to an end. Please log off.
%
The world's as ugly as sin,
And almost as delightful
-- Frederick Locker-Lampson
%
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.
%
There *__is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday.
%
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable,
and praiseworthy ...
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all own
cats.
%
There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis
are chosen correctly.
%
There are no games on this system.
%
There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the
truth without lying.
%
There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a
vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
-- Gloria Steinem
%
"There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both
plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis;
and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again,
don't we all?"
%
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
-- Disraeli
%
"There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away
from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone
loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor."
%
"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
%
There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I
can't remember.
-- Italo Svevo
%
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.
%
There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire
someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
%
There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is
one of them.
%
There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect
the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the
sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.
-- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
%
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
-- Woody Allen
%
"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
other is to read Pope."
-- Oscar Wilde
%
There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one
works.
%
There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a
suitable application of high explosives.
%
There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule.
-- R. W. Gerard
%
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
-- Henry Kissinger
%
There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than 10 men or fewer
than 100.
-- Steele's Law
%
There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know
nothing about.
%
There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an
opinion.
-- Anatole France
%
There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.
%
There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
%
There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs
tied during the month of April.
%
There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish.
-- Walt Disney
%
"There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor,
Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and
love of the Fatherland."
-- Adolf Hitler
%
"There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a
vacuum."
-- Arthur C. Clarke
%
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
-- Mark Twain
%
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
%
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it
-- G. B. Shaw
%
There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast
reflexes.
%
There is no such thing as fortune. Try again.
%
There is no time like the pleasant.
%
There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be
doing.
%
There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY.
There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS I'm very probably wrong.
%
There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the
ocean level wouldn't cure.
-- Ross MacDonald
%
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
that is not being talked about.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
-- Mark Twain
%
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved
it."
-- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
%
There was a young poet named Dan,
Whose poetry never would scan.
When told this was so,
He said, "Yes, I know.
%
There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not
a fence.
%
There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.
%
There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our
whole lives, win, lose, or draw.
-- Walt Kelly
%
There's no future in time travel
%
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
-- Dr. Who
%
There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get
any worse.
%
There's no room in the drug world for amateurs.
%
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government
working for you.
-- Will Rodgers
%
"There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead
armadillos."
-- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner
%
"There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't
aggravate."
%
There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn
what it is I'll get married again.
-- Clint Eastwood
%
There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is
becoming an endangered synthetic.
-- Lily Tomlin
%
"These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!"
"These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!"
"These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP
out of MEGATON MAN!"
%
These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they
used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink.
%
They also surf who only stand on waves.
%
"They make a desert and call it peace."
-- Tacitus (55?-120?)
%
They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners
always spell better than they pronounce.
-- Mark Twain
%
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
%
"They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"
%
They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!
%
"They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult
to like."
-- Avon
%
Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
%
Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.
%
Think big. Pollute the Mississippi.
%
Think honk if you're a telepath.
%
Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
%
Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer
crashes.
%
Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click".
%
"Thirty days hath Septober,
April, June, and no wonder.
all the rest have peanut butter
except my father who wears red suspenders."
%
This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14
%
This fortune intentionally not included.
%
This fortune is false.
%
This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
%
"This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling
keys ..."
%
"This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT
DOG."
-- Bob Violence
%
"This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an
actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?"
%
This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.
%
"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back
to one."
-- Prof. Seager, C&O 351
%
This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
%
This is the LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury!
%
This is your fortune.
%
This land is full of trousers!
this land is full of mausers!
And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down!
-- Firesign Theater
%
This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,
you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where
to go.
%
This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88
%
This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with
great force.
-- Dorothy Parker
%
"This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does
something child-like."
-- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
%
This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't.
-- Hofstadter
%
This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget
it.
%
Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those
of us who do.
%
Those who can't write, write manuals.
%
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
%
"Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics."
-- French Proverb
%
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer
%
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents,
for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
-- Aristotle
%
Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often
surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
-- Mark B. Cohen
%
Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
%
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable.
-- John F. Kennedy
%
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are
men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean
without the roar of its many waters.
-- Frederick Douglass
%
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana
%
Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
%
Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so.
-- Ford Prefect
%
Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at
once.
%
'Tis the dream of each programmer,
Before his life is done,
To write three lines of APL,
And make the damn things run.
%
To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.
%
"To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore
this is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to
offer in response is based on information available to make no such
statement."
%
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
call it the target.
%
To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy.
%
"To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"
%
To err is human, to moo bovine.
%
To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D.
-- B. Duggan
%
To generalize is to be an idiot.
-- William Blake
%
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three
men, two of them absent.
%
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
-- Thomas Edison
%
To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.
%
To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall.
%
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide
a test load.
%
"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?"
%
"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."
-- Woody Allen
%
Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official.
%
Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.
%
Today is the first day of the rest of the mess
%
Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage.
%
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday
%
Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?
And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
%
"Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new
cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
spectacular adventure starring ... Tippy, the Wonder Dog."
-- Bob & Ray
%
"Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word
except in major motion pictures."
-- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
%
Toilet Toup'ee, n.:
Any shag carpet that causes the lid to become top-heavy, thus
creating endless annoyance to male users.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest.
%
Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
%
Too clever is dumb.
-- Ogden Nash
%
Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.
-- Mae West
%
Too much of everything is just enough.
-- Bob Wier
%
Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available
briefcases.
-- Governor Jerry Brown
%
Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow.
%
Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live
in eucalyptus trees.
%
Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant
intelligence.
-- Henrik Tikkanen
%
Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
-- Mark Twain
%
Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.)
%
Truthful, adj.:
Dumb and illiterate.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational.
-- Charles Schulz
%
Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no
good.
%
Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.
%
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
specification is that it should run noiselessly.
%
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
-- Alan Watts
%
Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____yell into keyboard.
%
Turnaucka's Law:
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its
electrical cord.
%
Tussman's Law:
Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
%
TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright
%
Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.
-- Walt Kelly
%
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long.
-- Howard Kandel
%
Two percent of zero is almost nothing.
%
"Two sure ways to tell a sexy male; the first is, he has a bad memory.
I forget the second."
%
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
%
"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex."
(Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.)
-- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971)
%
UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist.
%
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
hammer or get a splinter in it.
%
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
hammmer or get a splinter in it.
%
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
just man is also a prison.
-- Henry David Thoreau
%
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
just man is also in prison.
-- Henry David Thoreau
%
Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it
can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ...
%
Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics:
Superiority is recessive.
%
Universe, n.:
The problem.
%
University, n.:
Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's
usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to
fix it, and ...
%
unix soit qui mal y pense
%
UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
-- Andy Tannenbaum
%
Unnamed Law:
If it happens, it must be possible.
%
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out
twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir
%
User n.:
A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
%
USER, n.:
The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
-- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"
%
Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
-- S. C. Johnson
%
Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none.
-- Doug Larson
%
Vail's Second Axiom:
The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the
amount of work already completed.
%
Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ...
Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ...
-- Tom Chapin
%
Van Roy's Law:
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
%
Veni, Vidi, Visa.
%
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
%
Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life."
Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes
waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it."
%
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
-- Salvor Hardin
%
Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the
yard.
%
"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.
%
Virtue is its own punishment.
%
Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
from where you left them to where you can't find them.
%
Vitamin C deficiency is apauling
%
VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M.
%
Vote anarchist
%
Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and
TAX-DEFERRED!
%
VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES?
%
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
-- Mark Twain
%
Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser.
%
War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
-- Charles Edward Montague
%
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.
%
WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
Firings will continue until morale improves.
%
WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
Firings will continue until morale improves.
%
WARNING:
Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your
mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on
your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war.
%
Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking
up.
-- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
%
Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with.
%
Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
-- John F. Kennedy
%
Waste not, get your budget cut next year.
%
Wasting time is an important part of living.
%
Watson's Law:
The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the
number and significance of any persons watching it.
%
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which
divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
-- Niels Bohr
%
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.
-- Winston Churchill
%
We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.
-- Whole Earth Catalog
%
We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
-- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
%
"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last
theorem."
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
"We are upping our standards ... so up yours."
-- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988.
%
We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved.
%
We can predict everything, except the future.
%
We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is
deceased. My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead.
-- James E. Day, Postmaster General
%
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
-- Vroomfondel
%
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
%
We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a
fish.
%
We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the
hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights!
%
We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids?
-- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission
%
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
-- Walt Kelly
%
We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get
back to normal, and that they already have.
%
"We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his
hands for masturbation."
-- Lily Tomlin
%
We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always
respect their good judgement.
%
We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass
no matter how self-seeking.
-- F. G. Withington
%
We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best
friends are trying to kill us.
%
We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one
technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
%
"We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later."
%
We're only in it for the volume.
-- Black Sabbath
%
We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center
of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,
but for some reason nobody's ever done it.
-- Andy Rooney
%
Weiler's Law:
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it
himself.
%
Weinberg's First Law:
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
%
Weinberg's Principle:
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
%
Weinberg's Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
%
Weiner's Law of Libraries:
There are no answers, only cross references.
%
Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if
you run out of food.
-- Dean McLaughlin.
%
"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can*
you believe?!"
-- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
%
"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is
no wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five
hundred."
-- The Mahabharata.
%
Westheimer's Discovery:
A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
couple of hours in the library.
%
Wethern's Law:
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
%
What color is a chameleon on a mirror?
%
"What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty
teenager asked her mother.
"Encouragement, dear," she replied.
%
What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"?
%
What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
%
What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
%
What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.
%
"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so
that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our
country. Nice try anyway, George."
-- D.J. on KSFO/KYA
%
What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the
entrance?
%
What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow
in his footsteps?
%
What I tell you three times is true.
%
What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility.
%
"What I've done, of course, is total garbage."
-- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a
%
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I
definitely overpaid for my carpet.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
%
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's
worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
%
What is a magician but a practising theorist?
-- Obi-Wan Kenobi
%
What is mind? No matter.
What is matter? Never mind.
-- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875
%
What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern
computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest
and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak.
%
"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?"
-- Bertold Brecht
%
"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out,
which is the exact opposite."
-- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical_Essays", 1928
%
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do.
%
What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing
to compare it with.
%
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
-- Ursula K. LeGuin
%
What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.
%
What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
%
What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.
%
What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent
bagel.
%
What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel.
%
What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING!
%
What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer.
%
What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
%
What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.
%
What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon.
%
What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn?
-- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
%
What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.
%
"What's another word for Thesaurus?"
-- Steven Wright
%
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?"
-- Dr. Who
%
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?"
-- The Doctor
%
Whatever became of eternal truth?
%
Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not
nailed down.
-- Collis P. Huntingdon
%
"Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not
cockroaches!"
-- Mom
%
When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the
money is.
-- Robespierre
%
When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the
thing," it's the money.
-- Kim Hubbard
%
When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half
loop?
%
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is
not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space
travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
-- Robert Heinlein
%
When all other means of communication fail, try words.
%
"When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapo
tactics *with* Gestapo tactics?"
-- Reuben Flagg
%
When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before
the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."
-- Vine Deloria, Jr.
%
When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I
think it was a Tuesday.
%
When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to
guarantee them.
%
"When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great
parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if
I'm leaving."
-- Steven Wright
%
When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a
year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire
winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer.
-- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
%
When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young
ladies, and, of course, the goat.
%
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now
I'm beginning to believe it.
-- Clarence Darrow
%
When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you
take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come
and get you."
-- Jerry Lewis
%
"When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any
firearms with me. I said, `Well, what do you need?'"
-- Steven Wright
%
When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
-- Woody Allen
%
When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
%
"When in doubt, tell the truth."
-- Mark Twain
%
When in doubt, use brute force.
-- Ken Thompson
%
When in panic, fear and doubt,
Drink in barrels, eat, and shout.
%
When Marriage is Outlawed,
Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.
%
When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment
results.
-- Calvin Coolidge
%
When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony
concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years --
and I find I mind it less and less."
-- Louise Andrews Kent
%
When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity:
for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when
your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
-- Daniel B. Luten
%
When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
%
"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical"
-- Jon Carroll
%
When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
modify the problem, not the remedy.
%
When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies,
the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a
nose bleed, which usually cures them of that.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%
When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is
metaphysics.
-- Voltaire
%
When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the
plane will fly.
-- Donald Douglas
%
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is
not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine
%
When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before --
except our fingertips will have been singed.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
"When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."
%
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
%
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
-- Harry Truman
%
"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
-- Winston Curchill, On formal declarations of war
%
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
%
When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
-- The Wall Street Journal
%
When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the
impression you will make.
%
When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN.
%
Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really".
-- Dave Parnas
%
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
see it tried on him personally.
-- A. Lincoln
%
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
-- Oscar Wilde
%
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform.
-- Mark Twain
%
Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what
is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
%
Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax.
%
Whether you can hear it or not
The Universe is laughing behind your back
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
%
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
%
While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is
admission to someone else.
%
While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several.
%
While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't
keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove.
-- Edward Stevenson
%
While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own
form of misery.
%
While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining
position.
%
While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their
correctness never does.
%
While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very
reassuring to know that it's still there.
%
While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are
safe, for you can watch both of his.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Whistler's Law:
You never know who is right, but you always know who is in
charge.
%
"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new
Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."
%
Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
%
Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?
%
Who's on first?
%
"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
-- George Ade
%
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
%
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
%
"Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could
have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing."
-- Ian Shoales
%
"Why be a man when you can be a success?"
-- Bertold Brecht
%
Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we
have?
%
Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else?
%
Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to
avoid responsibility with?
%
Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office
automation?
%
Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with.
%
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently
there must be a beverage.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
%
Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have
more lawyers?
New Jersey had first choice.
%
Why don't elephants eat penguins ?
Because they can't get the wrappers off ...
%
"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is
because we are not the person involved"
-- Mark Twain
%
Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
%
"Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"
-- Lily Tomlin
%
"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
you knowing nothing?"
-- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
%
"Why was I born with such contemporaries?"
-- Oscar Wilde
%
Wiker's Law:
Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
%
Williams and Holland's Law:
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by
statistical methods.
%
Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as
it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.
%
Wit, n.:
The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery
... by leaving it out.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I
try to be a fraud and a half.
-- Otto von Bismark
%
With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
-- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
build a nuclear balm?
%
Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless.
%
Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your
chairs.
%
World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced
dress code!
%
Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing:
August. The lines are the shortest, though.
-- Steve Rubenstein
%
Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985:
From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved
in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs
damage my videotapes?"
%
Worst Vegetable of the Year:
The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next
year.
-- Steve Rubenstein
%
"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
-- Lewis Carrol
%
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
-- Frank Zappa
%
"Wrong," said Renner.
"The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with
the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'"
%
X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the
imagination is the plot.
%
Xerox does it again and again and again and ...
%
Xerox never comes up with anything original.
%
XIIdigitation, n.:
The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made
by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall
fear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic
operators together.
-- Steve Higgins
%
"Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context."
%
Year, n.:
A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%
Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache.
%
Yes, but which self do you want to be?
%
Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
-- Snoopy
%
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.
%
Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
%
Yinkel, n.:
A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one
will notice.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%
You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.
%
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
%
You are the only person to ever get this message.
%
You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading
this sort of trash.
%
You buttered your bread, now lie in it.
%
"You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on."
-- Hepler, Systems Design 182
%
You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior
executive.
%
"You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
Why do you find that funny?"
-- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350
%
You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you
can with just a kind word.
-- Bumper Sticker
%
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have,
for instance.
-- Franklin P. Jones
%
You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
%
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
-- Alan Perlis
%
You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
%
You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding
decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left
over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart.
-- F. Allen
%
You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of
supercomputers.
-- Steven Feiner
%
You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.
%
"You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename."
-- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
%
You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks.
%
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
-- Steven Wright
%
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
-- Booker T. Washington
%
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
%
"You can't make a program without broken egos."
%
You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic
enough worrying about what's happening now.
-- Lauren Bacall
%
"You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten."
-- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
Over and Over"
%
"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they
don't."
-- Dagwood Bumstead
%
You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.
%
You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
%
You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.
%
You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first
and last month in advance.
%
You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable
doubt.
-- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict
%
You do not have mail.
%
You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
-- J. D. Salinger
%
You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting
needles.
-- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
%
You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.
%
You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to
metal objects which are not fastened down.
%
You have junk mail.
%
You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets
wrinkled.
%
You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot
today.
%
You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes
you wore home from the party and there aren't any.
%
You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens
anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
you can always change the channel.
-- Jim Ignatowski
%
You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo.
-- S. Rickly Christian
%
You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car.
-- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82
%
You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your
friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it.
%
You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.
%
You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
%
You may be recognized soon. Hide.
%
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he
is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing.
-- Sydney Harris
%
You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with
him.
-- Ed Howe
%
You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.
-- Alfred Kahn
%
You might have mail
%
"You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do."
%
You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll
be dead.
%
You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the
beach.
%
You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
%
You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
know how seldom they do.
-- Olin Miller.
%
You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
if they are dead.
%
You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than
about 10^12 to 1.
-- Ernest Rutherford
%
You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for
freedom and liberty.
-- Henrik Ibson
%
"You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a
plowshare, your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture"
-- Business Professor, University of Georgia
%
You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
%
You too can wear a nose mitten.
%
You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
%
You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.
%
You will be surprised by a loud noise.
%
You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself.
%
You will feel hungry again in another hour.
%
You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door
mayonnaise salesman.
%
You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
-- Sherlock Holmes
%
You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes.
%
You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You're not paid enough to
worry.
%
You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a
taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a
minute and a huff.
-- Groucho Marx
%
"You'll never be the man your mother was!"
%
You're at the end of the road again.
%
You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days.
%
You're never too old to become younger.
-- Mae West
%
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
-- Dean Martin
%
You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!!
%
You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture.
%
"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks."
-- Gary Giddens
%
"You've got to think about tomorrow!"
"TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *yesterday* yet!"
%
Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a
thing he tells you.
%
Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you
from enjoying it.
%
Your fault: core dumped
%
Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.
%
Your lucky color has faded.
%
Your lucky number has been disconnected.
%
Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
%
Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.
%
"Yow! Am I having fun yet?"
-- Zippy the Pinhead
%
YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!"
%
Zero Defects, n.:
The result of shutting down a production line.
%
Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words
since I first called my brother's father dad.
-- William Shakespeare, "King John"
%
A little suffering is good for the soul.
-- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0
%
A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and
licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
-- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown
%
A woman should have compassion.
-- Kirk, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2
%
Actual war is a very messy business. Very, very messy business.
-- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0
%
After a time, you may find that "having" is not so pleasing a thing,
after all, as "wanting." It is not logical, but it is often true.
-- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7
%
Another dream that failed. There's nothing sadder.
-- Kirk, "This side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3
%
... bacteriological warfare ... hard to believe we were once foolish
enough to play around with that.
-- McCoy, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown
%
Behind every great man, there is a woman -- urging him on.
-- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3
%
Blast medicine anyway! We've learned to tie into every organ in the
human body but one. The brain! The brain is what life is all about.
-- McCoy, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4
%
Change is the essential process of all existence.
-- Spock, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", stardate 5730.2
%
Do you know about being with somebody? Wanting to be? If I had the
whole universe, I'd give it to you, Janice. When I see you, I feel
like I'm hungry all over. Do you know how that feels?
-- Charlie Evans, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8
%
Earth -- mother of the most beautiful women in the universe.
-- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1
%
Even historians fail to learn from history -- they repeat the same
mistakes.
-- John Gill, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7
%
Every living thing wants to survive.
-- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
%
"Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth."
"Or by misleading the innocent."
-- Spock and McCoy, "And The Children Shall Lead",
stardate 5029.5.
%
Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing.
-- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4
%
Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.
-- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5
%
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say,
"Today I will be brilliant."
-- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
%
History tends to exaggerate.
-- Col. Green, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4
%
I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to
any question.
-- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3
%
I've already got a female to worry about. Her name is the Enterprise.
-- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0
%
If a man had a child who'd gone anti-social, killed perhaps, he'd still
tend to protect that child.
-- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
%
Immortality consists largely of boredom.
-- Zefrem Cochrane, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8
%
Insults are effective only where emotion is present.
-- Spock, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1
%
Is not that the nature of men and women -- that the pleasure is in the
learning of each other?
-- Natira, the High Priestess of Yonada, "For the World is
Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", stardate 5476.3.
%
Is truth not truth for all?
-- Natira, "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched
the Sky", stardate 5476.4.
%
It is a human characteristic to love little animals, especially if
they're attractive in some way.
-- McCoy, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6
%
It is necessary to have purpose.
-- Alice #1, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3
%
It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not
hers.
-- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7
%
It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable
-- Spock, "The Enterprise" Incident", stardate 5027.3
%
It would be illogical to kill without reason
-- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4
%
Killing is stupid; useless!
-- McCoy, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8
%
Killing is wrong.
-- Losira, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown
%
Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!
-- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3
%
"Logic and practical information do not seem to apply here."
"You admit that?"
"To deny the facts would be illogical, Doctor"
-- Spock and McCoy, "A Piece of the Action", stardate unknown
%
Lots of people drink from the wrong bottle sometimes.
-- Edith Keeler, "The City on the Edge of Forever",
stardate unknown
%
Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice.
-- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3220.3
%
Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal.
-- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7
%
Many Myths are based on truth
-- Spock, "The Way to Eden", stardate 5832.3
%
Men don't talk peace unless they're ready to back it up with war.
-- Col. Green, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4
%
Men of peace usually are [brave].
-- Spock, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5
%
Men will always be men -- no matter where they are.
-- Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1329.8
%
Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.
-- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.4
%
Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God.
-- M-5 Computer, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
%
No more blah, blah, blah!
-- Kirk, "Miri", stardate 2713.6
%
No one can guarantee the actions of another.
-- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
%
No one wants war.
-- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7
%
No problem is insoluble.
-- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4
%
Not one hundred percent efficient, of course ... but nothing ever is.
-- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8
%
Oh, that sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and
it's still the same song.
-- Eve McHuron, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1
%
On my planet, to rest is to rest -- to cease using energy. To me, it
is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass, using energy,
instead of saving it.
-- Spock, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.2
%
One does not thank logic.
-- Sarek, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4
%
One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for
advice without necessarily having to take it.
-- Kirk, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.2
%
Only a fool fights in a burning house.
-- Kank the Klingon, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
%
Our missions are peaceful -- not for conquest. When we do battle, it
is only because we have no choice.
-- Kirk, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5
%
Our way is peace.
-- Septimus, the Son Worshiper, "Bread and Circuses",
stardate 4040.7.
%
Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled.
-- Spock, "Operation -- Annihilate!" stardate 3287.2
%
Peace was the way.
-- Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown
%
Power is danger.
-- The Centurion, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2
%
Prepare for tomorrow -- get ready.
-- Edith Keeler, "The City On the Edge of Forever",
stardate unknown
%
Punishment becomes ineffective after a certain point. Men become
insensitive.
-- Eneg, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7
%
Respect is a rational process
-- McCoy, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3
%
Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to
pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion.
-- Romulan Commander, "The Enterprise Incident",
stardate 5027.3
%
Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on.
-- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9
%
Sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor.
-- Dr. Phillip Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"),
stardate unknown.
%
Star Trek Lives!
%
Suffocating together ... would create heroic camaraderie.
-- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3142.8
%
"That unit is a woman."
"A mass of conflicting impulses."
-- Spock and Nomad, "The Changeling", stardate 3541.9
%
"The combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile."
"Yes, the philosophy of 'none,' meaning 'all.'"
-- Spock and Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4
%
The face of war has never changed. Surely it is more logical to heal
than to kill.
-- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5
%
"The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity."
"And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty."
-- Dr. Miranda Jones and Spock, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?",
stardate 5630.8
%
The heart is not a logical organ.
-- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4
%
The idea of male and female are universal constants.
-- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8
%
The joys of love made her human and the agonies of love destroyed her.
-- Spock, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5842.8
%
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of
play.
-- Kirk, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.8
%
... The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when then get
to know each other.
-- Kirk, "Elaan of Troyius", stardate 4372.5
%
The sight of death frightens them [Earthers].
-- Kras the Klingon, "Friday's Child", stardate 3497.2
%
The sooner our happiness together begins, the longer it will last.
-- Miramanee, "The Paradise Syndrome", stardate 4842.6
%
... The things love can drive a man to -- the ecstasies, the
the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious
failures and the glorious victories.
-- McCoy, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7
%
There are always alternatives.
-- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3
%
There are certain things men must do to remain men.
-- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4929.4
%
There are some things worth dying for.
-- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7
%
There comes to all races an ultimate crisis which you have yet to face
.... One day our minds became so powerful we dared think of ourselves
as gods.
-- Sargon, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3
%
There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
-- Spock, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9
%
There is an old custom among my people. When a woman saves a man's
life, he is grateful.
-- Nona, the Kanuto which woman, "A Private Little War",
stardate 4211.8.
%
There is an order of things in this universe.
-- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1
%
There's a way out of any cage.
-- Captain Christopher Pike, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"),
stardate unknown.
%
There's another way to survive. Mutual trust -- and help.
-- Kirk, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
%
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
%
There's nothing disgusting about it [the Companion]. It's just another
life form, that's all. You get used to those things.
-- McCoy, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8
%
"There's only one kind of woman ..."
"Or man, for that matter. You either believe in yourself or you don't."
-- Kirk and Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1
%
This cultural mystique surrounding the biological function -- you
realize humans are overly preoccupied with the subject.
-- Kelinda the Kelvan, "By Any Other Name", stardate 4658.9
%
Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not
stopped.
-- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
%
Time is fluid ... like a river with currents, eddies, backwash.
-- Spock, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0
%
To live is always desirable.
-- Eleen the Capellan, "Friday's Child", stardate 3498.9
%
Too much of anything, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing.
-- Kirk, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6
%
Totally illogical, there was no chance.
-- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3
%
Uncontrolled power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all
be counted on to live down to our lowest impulses.
-- Parmen, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3
%
Violence in reality is quite different from theory.
-- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4
%
Virtue is a relative term.
-- Spock, "Friday's Child", stardate 3499.1
%
Vulcans believe peace should not depend on force.
-- Amanda, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.3
%
Vulcans never bluff.
-- Spock, "The Doomsday Machine", stardate 4202.1
%
Vulcans worship peace above all.
-- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3
%
Wait! You have not been prepared!
-- Mr. Atoz, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", stardate 3113.2
%
War isn't a good life, but it's life.
-- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8
%
We fight only when there is no other choice. We prefer the ways of
peaceful contact.
-- Kirk, "Spectre of the Gun", stardate 4385.3
%
We have found all life forms in the galaxy are capable of superior
development.
-- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3211.7
%
"We have the right to survive!"
"Not be killing others."
-- Deela and Kirk, "Wink of An Eye", stardate 5710.5
%
We Klingons believe as you do -- the sick should die. Only the strong
should live.
-- Kras, "Friday's Child", stardate 3497.2
%
We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine.
But when it comes to your job -- that's different. And it always will
be different.
-- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4
%
What kind of love is that? Not to be loved; never to have shown love.
-- Commissioner Nancy Hedford, "Metamorphosis",
stardate 3219.8
%
"What terrible way to die."
"There are no good ways."
-- Sulu and Kirk, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown
%
Where there's no emotion, there's no motive for violence.
-- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1
%
Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on
your human intuition.
-- Spock, "Assignment: Earth", stardate unknown
%
Without freedom of choice there is no creativity.
-- Kirk, "The return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4
%
Women are more easily and more deeply terrified ... generating more
sheer horror than the male of the species.
-- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4
%
Women professionals do tend to over-compensate.
-- Dr. Elizabeth Dehaver, "Where No Man Has Gone Before",
stardate 1312.9.
%
Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a woman always remains a
woman.
-- Kirk, "The Conscience of the King", stardate 2818.9
%
Yes, it is written. Good shall always destroy evil.
-- Sirah the Yang, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown
%
You are an excellent tactician, Captain. You let your second in
command attack while you sit and watch for weakness.
-- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9
%
You can't evaluate a man by logic alone.
-- McCoy, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3
%
You Earth people glorified organized violence for forty centuries. But
you imprison those who employ it privately.
-- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1
%
You go slow, be gentle. It's no one-way street -- you know how you
feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels too. Don't press. If
the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know.
-- Kirk, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8
%
You humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. "You're
welcome," I believe, is the correct response.
-- Spock, "Bread and Circuses", stardate 4041.2
%
You! What PLANET is this!
-- McCoy, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0
%
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", stardate 3715.6
%
You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much woman.
-- Kirk to Yeoman Rand, "The Enemy Within", stardate unknown
%