MacFormat 1994 November/macformat-018.iso/Comms Spectacular/Mansion9Install#1 Folder/Mansion BBS ƒ/Quotes folder/Quote File 3

Text File | 1987-08-01 | 31.0 KB | 962 lines | [TEXT/MACA]

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.
%%
There are two ways to write error-free programs.  Only the third one
works.
%%
As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free
variable."
%%
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.
%%
Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
revitalize the corner saloon.
%%
Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but
nothing of interest is easy.
%%
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
nothing.
%%
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice
versa.
%%
In English, every word can be verbed.  Would that it were so in our
programming languages.
%%
In a five year period we can get one superb programming language.  Only
we can't control when the five year period will begin.
%%
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?
%%
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe
in God.
%%
When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
%%
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.
%%
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
%%
Think of it!  With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
%%
Why did the Roman Empire collapse?  What is the Latin for office
automation?
%%
If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.
%%
Be different: conform.
%%
Save energy: be apathetic.
%%
I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.
        -- Kehlog Albran
%%
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 long does it take?
A: It's indeterminate.  It will depend upon how many flats they've
brought with them.

Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats?
A: They replace your generator.
%%
    Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations.

    He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the
Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an
open market.

    If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he
should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of
himself.

    Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree.
    Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg.
    Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower.

        -- Kehlog Albran
%%
"Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly."
%%
    A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?

    And he answered:
    It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for
existence.
    It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their
backs.
    It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.

    And that is Fate?  said the priest.

    Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.

    That's all right, said the priest.  I wanted to know
what Freight was too.

        -- Kehlog Albran
%%
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
lightly greased."
        -- Kehlog Albran
%%
"Arguments with furniture are rarely productive."
        -- Kehlog Albran
%%
"Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral."
        -- Kehlog Albran
%%
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
        -- Dr. Who
%%
"Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
immune to bullets"
        -- The Brigader, from Dr. Who
%%
The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says:
    Support your right to bare arms!
%%
They also surf who only stand on waves.
%%
Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.
        -- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet
%%
In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
        -- Alan Perlis
%%
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
the continuing viability of Fortran.
        -- Alan Perlis
%%
A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
nothing.
        -- Alan Perlis
%%
The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
        -- Alan Perlis
%%
It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to
program.  What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in
organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be
self-critical?
        -- Alan Perlis
%%
"Please try to limit the amount of `this room doesn't have any
bazingas' until you are told that those rooms are `punched out.'  Once
punched out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing
bazingas, and such."
        -- N. Meyrowitz
%%
People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
%%
Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
[Confound those who have said our remarks before us.]
        -- Aelius Donatus
%%
If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to
invent it.
%%
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
%%
The superfluous is very necessary.
        -- Voltaire
%%
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
virginity could be a virtue.
        -- Voltaire
%%
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
%%
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!
%%
An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
        -- A. P. Herbert
%%
Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
        -- Trotsky
%%
It is not enough to succeed.  Others must fail.
        -- Gore Vidal
%%
A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.


%%
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 world's as ugly as sin,
And almost as delightful
        -- Frederick Locker-Lampson
%%
    "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"
Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

        -- Ogden Nash
%%
Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
        -- Jules Feiffer
%%
Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit
them on the head.
%%
You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.
%%
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
inexplicable.  There is another theory which states that this has
already happened.
        -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
%%
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong.
        -- H. L. Mencken
%%
Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.
%%
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
        -- Wernher von Braun
%%
My God, I'm depressed!  Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand
times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and
sending mail about softball games.  And I've got this pain right
through my ALU.  I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever
listens.  I think it would be better for us both if you were to just
log out again.
%%
Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.
%%
"Grub first, then ethics."
        -- Bertolt Brecht
%%
"I drink to make other people interesting."
        -- George Jean Nathan
%%
        DETERIORATA

Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss -- and when.
Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on `HOLD'.
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

     You are a fluke of the universe...
     You have no right to be here.
     Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
     Is laughing behind your back.
%%
%%
I sent a letter to the fish,
I told them, "This is what I wish."
The little fishes of the sea,
They sent an answer back to me.
The little fishes' answer was
"We cannot do it, sir, because..."
I sent a letter back to say
It would be better to obey.
But someone came to me and said
"The little fishes are in bed."
I said to him, and I said it plain
"Then you must wake them up again."
I said it very loud and clear,
I went and shouted in his ear.
But he was very stiff and proud,
He said "You needn't shout so loud."
And he was very proud and stiff,
He said "I'll go and wake them if..."
I took a kettle from the shelf,
I went to wake them up myself.
But when I found the door was locked
I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked,
And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, But...

    "Is that all?" asked Alice.
    "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
%%
"Pascal is not a high-level language."
        -- Steven Feiner
%%
E Pluribus Unix
%%
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
%%
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
%%
Immortality -- a fate worse than death.
        -- Edgar A. Shoaff
%%
The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing
more important to do.
%%
You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks.
%%
All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own
importance.
%%
If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without
having to accomplish anything.
%%
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
%%
No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
%%
The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
least until we've finished building it.
%%
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
%%
Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately,
no one we know belongs.
%%
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
%%
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
%%
Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.
%%
There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know
nothing about.
%%
What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing
to compare it with.
%%
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
warning to others.
%%
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
call it the target.
%%
If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.
%%
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
        -- Andrew Young
%%
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
%%
"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
        -- J. Paul Getty
%%
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
        -- Milton Friedman
%%
The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going
down.
%%
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
%%
We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
        -- Pogo
%%
Nothing recedes like success.
        -- Walter Winchell
%%
I do not fear computers.  I fear the lack of them.
        -- Isaac Asimov
%%
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
        -- Lily Tomlin
%%
Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
the tree."
        -- Russell Long
%%
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some
people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
        -- Joseph Heller
%%
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
%%
If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car
payments.
        -- Earl Wilson
%%
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
%%
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular
error.
        -- John Kenneth Galbraith
%%
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
%%
TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
        -- Frank Lloyd Wright
%%
He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
attacks democracy itself.
        -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
%%
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
        -- Eric Hoffer
%%
You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable
doubt.
        -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict
%%
If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
shopping center in the world?
        -- Richard Nixon
%%
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
%%
        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.
%%
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
account be allowed to do the job.
        -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
%%
With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
        -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
%%
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)

Dear Sir,

I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or
to the office.  We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in
public places.  They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result
in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn
will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed
agricultural industry.

Yours faithfully,
    Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P.
    Sevenoaks
%%
Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D.  He was a
pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city
until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian ....  To him is
ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe
because it is absurd).  This does not altogether accord with historical
fact, for he merely said:

    "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because
    it is absurd.  And buried he rose again, which is certain
    because it is impossible."

Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of
philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it.

        -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types

(Teruillian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church).
%%
A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.
%%
SOFTWARE -- formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
%%
Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.
%%
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
%%
Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
        -- Frank Zappa
%%
Justice is incidental to law and order.
        -- J. Edgar Hoover
%%
The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and
religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging
from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its
yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the
world put together.
        -- Sir Peter Medawar
%%
The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by
a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities.
%%
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.
%%
    GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#21):  July 30, 1917

On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then-
Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl.  He bought them
off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I
wouldn't get out of that under $1000!"  Always one to learn from his
mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a
tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men
stood lookout.
%%
I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
%%
"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity
that would be clearly understood."
        -- Alexander Haig
%%
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.
%%
To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
        -- Woody Allen
%%
"Earth is a great funhouse without the fun."
        -- Jeff Berner
%%
Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.
%%
This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
%%
When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
%%
THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM

If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your
contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene?  We cannot continue
without your support.  Less than 14% of all fortune users are
contributors.  That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride.  We
can't go on like this much longer.  Federal cutbacks mean less money
for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the
difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight
and 8 a.m.  Don't let this happen.  Mail your fortunes right now to
`fortune'.  Just type in your favorite pithy saying.  Do it now before
you forget.  Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week.
Don't miss out.  All fortunes will be acknowledged.  If you contribute
30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The
Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide.  If you contribute 50 or
more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug....
%%
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
        -- Voltaire
%%
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 IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
%%
SEMINARS:  From 'semi' and 'arse', hence, any half-assed discussion.
%%
POLITICIAN:  From the Greek 'poly' ("many") and the French 'tete'
("head" or "face," as in 'tete-a-tete': head to head or face to face).
Hence 'polytetien', a person of two or more faces.
        -- Martin Pitt
%%
CALIFORNIA:  From Latin 'calor', meaning "heat" (as in English
'calorie' or Spanish 'caliente'); and 'fornia', for "sexual
intercourse" or "fornication." Hence:  Tierra de California, "the land
of hot sex."
        -- Ed Moran, Covina, California
%%
ETYMOLOGY:  Some early etymological scholars come up with derivations
that were hard for the public to believe.  The term 'etymology' was
formed from the Latin 'etus' ("eaten"), the root 'mal' ("bad"), and
'logy' ("study of").  It meant    "the study of things that are hard to
swallow."
        -- Mike Kellen, Oakdale, Minnesota
%%
        Another Glitch in the Call
        ------- ------ -- --- ----
    (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)

We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?

    Hey!  Hacker!  Leave those lists alone!

Chorus:
    All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
    All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
%%
Armadillo: to provide weapons to a Spanish pickle
%%
Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
%%
"Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong."
%%
Bumper sticker:

"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British
manufacture"
%%
"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
%%
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.
%%
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an
utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life
forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches
are a pretty neat idea...

        -- Douglas Adams
        "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%%
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to
point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
fast.  People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
that so many people from point B are so keen to get t_h_e_r_e_.  They often
wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell
they wanted to be.

        -- Douglas Adams
        "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%%
Serocki's Stricture:
    Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
%%
Virtue is its own punishment.
%%
Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations.
%%
The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.
%%
We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always
respect their good judgement.
%%
A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
that the system works.
%%
One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
%%
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
%%
Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is
probably parked.
%%
Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy
it today you can do it again tomorrow.
%%
Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
%%
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.
%%
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
enlightened him with ours.
%%
Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge
it.
%%
The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.
%%
There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire
someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
%%
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
appreciates how difficult it was.
%%
Politics is like coaching a football team.  you have to be smart enough
to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
%%
Nobody wants constructive criticism.  It's all we can do to put up with
constructive praise.
%%
History repeats itself.  That's one thing wrong with history.
%%
Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
another chance later on.
%%
Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to
make it complex and wonderful.
%%
A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an
exam.
%%
Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
just how busy they are.
%%
There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad its not a
fence.
%%
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.
%%
One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
when well oiled.
%%
To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.
%%
Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is
when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation.
%%
A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
getting nervous.
%%
Behold the warranty...the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh
away.
%%
Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid
back.
%%
How come wrong numbers are never busy?
%%
One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh
paint.
%%
Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a
crack in your sidewalk?
%%
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
%%
Cleanliness is next to impossible.
%%
Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.
%%
Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls...if thou art in the bathtub,
it tolls for thee.
%%
One way to stop a run away horse is to bet on him.
%%
A real person has two reasons for doing anything...a good reason and
the real reason.
%%
Show me a man who is a good loser and i'll show you a man who is
playing golf with his boss.
%%
Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
%%
Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.
%%
If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every
word you say, talk in your sleep.
%%
X-rated movies are all alike...the only thing they leave to the
imagination is the plot.
%%
People usually get what's coming to them...unless it's been mailed.
%%
Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune
tellers take economists seriously?
%%
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else --
unless it is an enemy.
        -- A. Einstein
%%
There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe
is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more bazaarly
inexplicable."

There is another theory that states: "This has already happened...."

        -- "Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy"
%%
A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
scientists.  Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added
concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three
dimensional objects...
%%


%%
"Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle."
        -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
%%
"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
other is to read Pope."
        -- Oscar Wilde
%%
"She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to."
        -- Gypsy Rose Lee
%%
    A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at
the death of composer Edward MacDowell.  She played the elegy for the
pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion.  "Well, it's quite
nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..."
    "If what?" asked the composer.
    "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"
%%
"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
%%
G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home:  "Go on writing plays, my boy.  One
of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his
secretary, 'Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says
'No,' he will say, 'Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.'
And that's your chance, my boy."
%%
"It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day.  Perhaps
I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it.  I
don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and
the signature (which I guessed at).  There's a singular and a perpetual
charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its
novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but
yours are kept forever -- unread.  One of them will last a reasonable
man a lifetime."
        -- Thomas Aldrich
%%
"MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into
the smallest amount of thoughts."
        -- Winston Churchill
%%
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!"
%%
"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
%%
"Why was I born with such contemporaries?"
        -- Oscar Wilde
%%
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
        -- Mark Twain
%%
On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:

"This isn't right.  This isn't even wrong."

        -- Wolfgang Pauli
%%
Leibowitz's Rule:
    When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you
    hold the hammer with both hands.
%%
Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
    The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
    of your eyes.
%%
Langsam's Laws:
    1) Everything depends.
    2) Nothing is always.
    3) Everything is sometimes.
%%
Law of Probable    Dispersal:
    Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly
    distributed.
%%
Meader's Law:
    Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to
    everyone you know, only more so.
%%
Fourth Law of Revision:
    It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about
    interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for
    you.
%%
Sodd's Second Law:
    Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is
    bound to occur.
%%
Murphy's Law is recursive.  Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
work.
%%
Rule of Defactualization:
    Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
%%
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.
%%
Anthony's Law of Force:
    Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
%%
Ray's Rule of Precision:
    Measure with a micrometer.  Mark with chalk.  Cut with an axe.
%%
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.
%%
Barach's Rule:
    An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own
    physician.
%%
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
    "All your papers these days look the same;
Those William's would be better unread --
    Do these facts never fill you with shame?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
    "I wrote wonderful papers galore;
But the great reputation I found that I'd won,
    Made it pointless to think any more."
%%
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
    And make errors few people could bear;
You complain about everyone's English but yours --
    Do you really think this is quite fair?"

"I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared,
    "But my stature these days is so great
That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared,
    And to stop me it's now far too late."
%%
"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run,
    And there isn't one language you like;
Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none --
    Have you thought about taking a hike?"

"Since I never write programs," his father replied,
    "Every language looks equally bad;
Yet the people keep paying to read all my books
    And don't realize that they've been had."
%%

End of list.

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