A Day Off So you want a day off. Let's look at what you are asking for. There are 365 days per year available for work. There are 52 weeks per year, inwhich you already have two days off, leaving 261 days available for work. Since you spend 16 hours each day away from work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available, You spend 30 min. each day on coffee break, that accounts for 23 more days each year, leaving only 68 days. With a one hyour lunch each day, you use up another 48 days, leaving only 22 days available for work. You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leav. This leaves only 20 days available for work. We offer 5 holidays per year, leaving only 15 days. We generously give you 14 days vacation per year leaving you only 1 day available for work and I'll be dammed if you're going to take that day off!!! % -- NEWSFLASH -- Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! % -Gifts for Men - Men are amused by almost any idiot thing - that is why professional ice hockey is so popular - so buying gifts for them is easy. But you should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error, that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh at him (You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?). So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you. If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires. -Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide % Yoda (Sung to the tune of Lola, by the Kinks) by Weird Al Yankovic I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda S-O-D-A soda I saw the little runt sitting there on a log I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I've been around but I ain't never seen A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda % -Gifts for Children - This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide % ACHTUNG!!! Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!! % Commandment #12592 Oh ye who go about saying unto each other: "Hello sailor": Dost thou know the magnitude of thy sin before the gods? Yea, verily, thou shalt be ground between two stones. Shall the angry gods cast thy body into the whirlpool? Surely, thy eye shall be put out with a sharp stick! Even unto the ends of the earth shalt thou wander and unto the land of the dead shalt thou be sent at last. Surely thou shalt repent of thy cunning. % JACK AND THE BEANSTACK by Mark Isaak Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window ... % THE STORY OF CREATION or THE MYTH OF URK In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, Let there be registers; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt ... -Rico Tudor % Pittsburgh Driver's Test The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light but a steady left tail light. This means (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn to call the problem to the driver's attention. (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. (d) the driver is from out of town. The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign countries to signal turns. % A Severe Strain on Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -New York Times Editorial, 1920 % (sung to The Caissons Go Rolling Along) Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. And we've also found Just flip one switch When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble in a flash. Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but foo, And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. % The Five Yorkshiremen: The Next Generation Y1: Who would've thought that we'd be on a ship that could separate in times of battle and keep most of the crew safe? I remember when the whole ship used to go to yellow alert every time we entered an ion storm. Y2: You were lucky. We had to go to double yellow alert whenever the captain fell into an obelisk, came out thinking he was a god, and married an Indian woman. Y3: You were lucky. We had to go to yellowish-red alert every time a woman came on board and stole the first officer's brain. Y4: You were lucky to have a woman on board. We had to go to red alert when we were attacked by a mutant salt creature disguised as a woman. Y5: Luxury! We had to go to double red alert every time the captain found an overloading phaser in his quarters. Y1: Oh, we used to dream of having an overloading phaser in the captain's quarters. We had to go to triple red alert every time the blood- sucking gas cloud got into the ship through impulse vent number two. Y2: You were lucky. We had to go to quadruple red alert, blow up our own ship, steal a Klingon bird of prey (which doesn't even have a red alert), go to Vulcan to revive the dead captain, go back in time and get two whales, come back and crash land in San Francisco Bay, all on a Klingon triple black alert. Y3: And if you'd try to tell that to these young officers today, they wouldn't believe you. Others: Nope. No they wouldn't. % How to tell when you are dead 1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, bugs, ants. 2) Something is missing in your personal relationships. 3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate. 4) You have a hard time getting a waiter. 5) Exotic birds flock around you. 6) People ignore you at parties. 7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning. 8) You no longer get off on cocaine. % Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence 1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb; use the stairs. 2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground. 3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. 4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems. 5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. 6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. 7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. 8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be staggering illegally. 9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more sanitary due to limited circulation. 10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day. % Inventory Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. % 'Twas the Night before Crisis 'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, Not a program was working not even a browse. The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer. The users were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear. More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name; On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, From Weekends and nights in front of a screen. A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread... % Computer Program Virtually Eliminates Machine Errors Spokesmen for a local electronic firm have announced a computer program that through fresh application of an old technique - virtually eliminates lost time due to malfunction of computer components. Called OREMA (from latin "oremus", meaning "let us pray"), the program offers prayers at selected time intervals for the continued integrity of memory units, tape transports, and other elements subject to depravity. Basically liturgical in structure, OREMA uses standard petitions and intercessions stored on magnetic tapes in Latin, Hebrew, and FORTRAN. It holds regular maintenance services thrice daily on an automatic cycle, and operator intervention is required only for mounting tapes and making responses, such as "Amen", or "And With Thy Spirit", on the console typewriter. Prayers in Hebrew and FORTRAN are offered directly to the CPU, but Latin prayers may go to peripheral equipment for transfer to the CPU by internal subroutines. Although manufacturer supplied prayer reels cover all machine troubles known today, the program will add punch card prayers to any tape, as needed, after the final existing AMEN block. Classified prayer reels are available for government installations. In trials on selected machines, OREMA reduced by 98.2 percent the average down time due to component failure. The manufacturer's spokesman emphasized, however, that OREMA presently defends only against malfunction of hardware. Requestor errors and other human blunders will continue unchecked until completion of a later version to be called SIN-OREMA. -W.S. Minkler, Jr. American Nuclear Society, Jan. 1965 % Ancestry When speaking of our ancestry, My mother's eyes would shine, And proudly she would tell us all: "You're of the Tudor line." But father with a smile would say: "While bearing that in mind, You keep your eyes on goals ahead; Not those that be behind." "You have a noble ancestry, But all are dead and gone, 'Tis you who have to prove your worth, Not those who've journeyed on." "And back along that Tudor line, 'Tis sorry truth I state, There may be some you can't approve, And even some you'd hate." "The way to prove your ancestry, As what you are yourself; Not by the charted family tree, In book upon the shelf." "So try to be an ancestor, Within the time allowed, Of whom your children's children, In the future can be proud." % 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. % SPRING As I awoke this morning When all sweet things are born, A bird perched softly on my sill To signal coming morn. The bird was fragile, young, and gay, And sweetly did it sing, Hummed softly with a cheery song, So too my heart did sing. The sun gave to his feathers glow, And as he paused, a lull, I gently closed the window, And crushed his little skull. % Seven years and six months! Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' - but it's too late now. I never ask advice about growing, Alice said indignantly. Too proud? the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. I mean, she said, that one can't help growing older. ONE can't, perhaps, said Humpty Dumpty; but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven. -Lewis Carroll % Theory Into love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head? -Dorothy Parker % There was a cage with several apes in it. In the cage there was a banana hung on a string, and stairs under it. Before long an ape went to the stairs to get the banana, but as soon as it even touched the stairs, all apes were sprayed with water. After a while the same ape or another one made another attempt, with the same result: all apes are sprayed. If later another ape tries to climb the stairs, the others will try to prevent it. Now they took one ape from the cage and put in a new one. The new ape saw the banana, and wanted to climb the stairs. To his horror all other apes attacked him. After another attempt he knew: if he wanted to climb the stairs, he would be beaten up. Then they removed a second ape and replaced it by another new one. The newcomer went to the stairs and got beaten up. The previous new ape took part in the punishment with enthusiasm. A third old ape was replaced by a third new one. The new one made it to the stairs and got beaten up as well. Two of the apes who beat him have no idea why they may not climb the stairs. They replace the fourth old ape, and the fifth, etc. until all apes which have been sprayed with water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever tries to climb the stairs. One day a new, young ape asks, "But Sir, why not?" "Because that's the way we do things around here, my boy." % You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young! Why, what did she tell you? I don't know, I didn't listen! -Ford Prefect % Nations and empires flourish and decay, By turns command, and in their turns obey. -Ovid % --- (0 0) Kilroy was here ----------------------W--U--W------------------------------ % PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS ___________________________ YES / Does the Darn Thing work? \ NO +------------| |------------+ | \___________________________/ | | | V V +----------+ _________ | Don't | YES / Did you \ | mess | +---------| mess | | with it! | | | with it | +----------+ | \_________/ | V | NO | _________ +-------+ | | / Does \ | YOU | | | NO | anyone |<-----------| MORON | | | +---| know? | +-------+ | | | \_________/ | | V | YES | | +------+ +-----------+ | | | HIDE | V | | | IT | +--------+ _____v_____ | +------+ | YOU | YES / WILL THEY \ | | +------->| DUMB |<------------| CATCH YOU?| | | | | MORON | \___________/ | | | |________| | NO | | | | V | | | ______v________ +------------+ | | | NO / CAN YOU BLAME \ |DESTROY THE | | | +------| SOMEONE ELSE? | | EVIDENCE | | | \_______________/ +------------+ | | | YES | | | | | | | v | | | ============================= | | +------>|| N O ||<------+ +-------------->|| P R O B L E M || ============================= % Gimmie That Old Time Religion We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids, Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods, I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids, And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me! (chorus) (chorus) In the church of Aphrodite, The priestess wears a see-through nightie, She's a mighty righteous sightie, And she's good enough for me! (chorus) CHORUS: Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, 'Cause it's good enough for me! % v ~. v v /| / | v v /__|__ \--------/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`~~~~~~'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ % //-n-\\ _____---=======---_____ ====____\ /.. ..\ /____==== // ---\__o__/--- \\ \_\ /_/ % (__) (__) (__) (oo) (OO) (xx) /-------\/ /-------\/ /-------\/ / | || / | || / | || * ||----|| * ||----|| * ||----|| ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Cow Cow 10 miles from Cow 1 mile from nuclear waste dump nuclear waste dump % (__) (oo) M M O0O OOO /-------\/ --- MM MM O O O O / | || M M M O O O O * ||----|| M M O0O OOO ~~ ~~ COW % A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling, by Mark Twain: For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. % T H I S IS A T E S T O F T H E E M E R G E N C Y B R O A D C A S T I N G S Y S T E M I F T H I S H A D B E E N A R E A L E M E R G E N C Y Y O U W O U L D H A V E B E E N I N S T R U C T E D T O P A N I C ! ! ! % XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X X X X \ / X X X V X X X O OX X X \___##X___/ X X ##X## X X ___#X###___ X X / X#### \ X X _X_###___ X X /X V \ X X X X XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX % YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF PAPER SHUFFLING! Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel really important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best." - Mr. MARC had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and make really big Zorkmids." - MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter. SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY! % In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, junior, what are you up to?" "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves." "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox. The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. % ___ / \ | RIP | |_____| % lim(major) = P.E. GPA-->0 % o < ' Run! / > ' ' % "... all the modern inconveniences ..." -Mark Twain % "All flesh is grass." -Isaiah Smoke a friend today. % "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." % "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" % "Can I park here?" "Nope", said the cop. "Well, then how come these other cars are parked here?" "They didn't ask me", replied the cop. % "Do you cheat on your wife?" asked the psychiatrist. "Who else?" answered the patient. % "Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, sincerely, extremely dangerously. % "Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings." -George F. Will % "Give us a copper, Guv" said the beggar to the Treasury statistician, when he waylaid him in Parliament square. "I haven't eaten for three days." "Ah," said the statistician, "And how does that compare with the same period last year?" -Russell Lewis % "Give us the man," shout the multitude," who will step forward and take the responsibility." He is instantly the idol, the lord, and the king among men. He, then, who would command among his fellows, must excel them more in energy or will than in power of intellect. -Burnap % "Go to Hell!" or other direct insult is all the answer a snoopy question deserves. -Lazarus Long % "Have you lived here all your life?" "Oh, twice that long." % "Heroine" is perhaps as peculiar a word as any in our language; the two first letters of it are a male, the three first a female, the four first a brave man, and the whole word a brave woman, and the first 6 letters of it are the downfall of all of the others. % "I don't think so," said Ren'e Descartes. Just then, he vanished. % "I hate the itching. But I don't mind the swelling." (new buzz phrase, like "No new taxes." that David Letterman's trying to get everyone to start saying) % "I must do something" will always solve more problems than, "Something must be done." % "I'm lonely," Adam told God in the Garden of Eden. "I need to have somenone around for company." "Okay," replied God. "I'm going to give you the perfect woman. Beautiful, intelligent and gracious - she'll cook and clean for you and never say a cross word." "Sounds good," Adam said. "But what's she going to cost?" "An arm and a leg." "That's pretty steep," countered Adam. "What can I get for just a rib?" % "Right reason," by which Cicero meant, "an immediate and intuitive apprehension of moral and spiritual values," of what is right and just and what is wrong and unjust, was in the nature of things placed by God in all men; and no decree or legislative enactment could change what is right and what is wrong. -Forest MacDonald % "The enemy was repelled. But victory was not won. The war dragged on for a year and there was no decision. Gold grew scarce, and again the Government was in despair. "I easily relieved them. 'Write,' I said, 'promises on paper to be repaid in gold.' They did as I advised, paying me (at my request) a trifle of half a million for the advice. I handled the affairon a merely nominal profit. I punctually met for another year every note that was pain in. But too many were presented, for the war seemed unending and entered a third year." "Then did i conceive yet another stupendous thing. 'Bid them,' said I to the Sultan, 'take the notes as money. Cease to repay. Write, not 'I will on delivery of this paper pay a piece of gold,' but, 'this is a piece of gold.'" "He did as I told him. The next day the Vizier came to me with the story of an insolent fellow to whom fifty such notes had been offered as payment for a camel for the war and who had sent back, not a camel, but another piece of paper on which was written 'This is a camel.'" "'Cut off his head!' said I." "It was done, and the warning sufficed. The paper was taken and the war proceeded." from Hilaire Belloc, _The_Mercy_of_Allah_, 1922 courtesy of ECON 605 by Leigh Tesfatsion % "Truth," I cried, "though the heavens crush me for following her; no falsehood, though a whole celestial Lubberland were the price of apostasy!" -Carlyle % "Twice five syllables Plus seven can't say much but That's Haiku for you. % "VAX. For those who care enough to steal the very best." -- A microscopic message on the silicon chip inside one of Digital Equipment's often stolen computer designs. % "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother. "Encouragement, dear," she replied. % "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." -Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll % "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. -George Ade % "Why should I?" is the cry of work dodgers. Their aim is to do just enough to get by. They are clock watchers who are afraid they will render more service than they are paid to perform. They are too lazy to think, too selfish to put their shoulders to the wheel in a common cause. % "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.'" % "You doubted Me," God tells the Lawgiver [Moses], "But I forgave you that doubt. You doubted your own self and failed to believe in your own powers as a leader, and I forgave you that also. But you lost faith in these people and doubted the divine possibilities of Human Nature. THIS loss of faith makes it impossible for you to enter the Promised Land." -The Midrash % $100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000, by which time it will be worth nothing. -Lazarus Long % %DCL-BAD-MEM, bad memory VMS-F-PUDDEARS, pudding between the ears % %DIRECT-W-NOFILES, no files found % 'Tis a common proof, that lowliness is a Edward Young ambition's ladder, whereto the climber upwards turns his face; but when he once attains the utmost round, he then unto the ladder turns his back, looks into the clouds scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend. -Shakespeare % 'Tis better that a man's own works, than that another man's words should praise him. -L'Estrange % 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue. -Campbell % 'Tis easier for the generous to forgive, Than for offense to ask it. -Thomson % 'Tis education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd -Alexander Pope % 'Tis home felt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh; This makes him wish to live and dare to die. -Campbell % 'Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it. -Shakespeare % 'Tis late before The brave despair. -Thomson % 'Tis not in mortals to command success; But we'll do more, Sempronius- we'll deserve it. -Addison % 'Tis not the fairest form that holds The mildest, purest soul within; 'Tis not the richest plant that holds The sweetest fragrance in. -Dawes % 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. -Tennyson % 'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. -Shakespeare % 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in't. -Lord Byron % 'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ To gain the riches he can ne'er enjoy. -Alexander Pope % 'Tis the dream of each programmer, Before his life is done, To write three lines of APL, And make the damn thing run. % 'Tis the mind that makes the body rich. -Shakespeare % 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks Did gyre and gimble in their cave All mimsy was the CS-VAX And Cory raths outgrave. Beware the software rot, my son! The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! Beware the broken pipe, and shun The frumious system crash! % 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And throughout our place of residence, Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... % (Sung to the tune of The Impossible Dream from MAN OF LA MANCHA) To code the impossible code, To bring up a virgin machine, To pop out of endless recursion, To grok what appears on the screen, To right the unrightable bug, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To mount the unmountable magtape, To stop the unstoppable crash! % (The following is the large-type attention-getting part of a flyer advertising Princeton University's amateur mime group. Reprinted without permission, though I doubt they'd mind the extra circulation.) CALL 900-HOT-MIME for SILENT FANTASIES "Our mime is in the gutter." % (rubs hands, inhales appreciatively) "Ah -- a meal fit for a king!" (looks around, whistles) "Here, King!" % ... And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man -A. E. Housman % ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed. % ... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up. -Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide % ... The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil out of Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge. % ... and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. -Shakespeare % ... and living was just a way of passing time until he died. -Hamish Sankov % ... and oftener changed their principles than their shirts. -Dr. Young % ... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... % ... it is not through sin that he opposes God. The Devil's strategy for our times is to make trivial human existence and to isolate us from one another while creating the delusion that the reasons are time pressures, work demands, or economic anxieties. -C. S. Lewis % ... it's just what usually happens is propaganda from the right is perceived as actuality, and propaganda from the left is perceived as propaganda... -Art Spiegelman % ... so the American government went to IBM to come up with a data encryption standard and they came up with... EBCDIC! % ... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!! % ... there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species should be equal amongst one another without subordination or subjection. -John Locke % ...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a courtesy detail. % .retupmoc eht edisni deppart ma I !pleH % /earth is 98% full ... please delete all un-necessary people. % 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 buckets of bits on the bus... 100 buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits on the bus... FF buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FE buckets of bits on the bus ad infinitum... % 101-ism: The tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % 186,282 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW. % 2+2=5-ism: Caving in to a target marketing strategy aimed at oneself after holding out for a long period of time. "Oh, all right, I'll buy your stupid cola. Now leave me alone." -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % 2180, U.S. History question: What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what office did he later hold? % 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation! % 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation - Core dumped % 7:30, Channel 19: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest. % 99 blocks of crud on the disk... 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... % A CONS is an object which cares. -Bernie Greenberg % A Democratic nation, at least when organized to secure the political rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, can be a large and populous nation. -Michael Scully % A Dozen, a Gross and a Score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times eleven, equals nine squared and not a bit more. ((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^1/2)) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 +0 % A God alone can comprehend a God. -Young % A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. % 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 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 Millet man tried to have his marriage voided when he found out her father didn't have a license for his shotgun. % 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 Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere is having fun. % A Rare Conjunction of Stars means bad luck for the rest of your life. % A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater. % A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. % A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. She found a good way To combine work and play: She sells C shells by the seashore. % A White House well filled, a little peanut field well tilled, and a wife who will go to the Bronx are great riches. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % A army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience and morale, and morale is worth more than all the other factors combined. -Napoleon Bonaparte % A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. % A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -Don Quinn % A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass. -Donald A. Metz % A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena. -Donald A. Metz % A bank robber in Buffalo entered and placed a bag over his head. He forgot to poke eyeholes and was blinded, and promptly tackled by security guards and customers. % 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 baseball player who makes a spectacular defensive play always leads off the next inning as batter. -Bob Smith % A bather whose clothing was strewed By breezes that left her quite nude, Saw a man come along And, unless I'm quite wrong, You expected this line to be lewd. % A bathroom hook will be loaded to capacity immediately upon becoming available. This also applies to freeways, closets, playgrounds, downtown hotels, taxis, parking lots, bookcases, wallets, purses, pockets, pipe racks, basement shelves, and so on. The list is endless. -John Joyce % A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent, a kind eye makes contradiction an assent, an enraged eye makes beauty deformed. This little member gives life to every part about us; and I believe the story of Argus implies no more, than the eye is in every part; that is to say, every other part would be mutilated, were not its force represented more by the eye than even by itself. -Addison % A bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead. -Alexander Pope % A billion here, a couple of billion there - first thing you know it adds up to be real money. -Everett McKinley Dirksen % A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. % A bird in the hand is better than overhead. % A bird in the hand is dead. -Rhonda Boozer % A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. % A bitter jest, when the satire comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind. -Tacitus % A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing into trees. At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same forest, crashing into rocks and trees. The rabbit and the snake collided head-on. "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally," said the rabbit. "That's quite all right," said the snake, "I have the same problem." "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do you think you could help me find out?" "I'll try," said the snake. He gently coiled himself around the rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail and long ears. You're a bunny rabbit!" "Oh, thank you very much!" said the rabbit. "I don't know what I am either," said the snake. "Do you suppose you could help me?" The rabbit pawed over the snake. "You're low, cold and slimy..." He felt the snake's underbelly. "And you have no balls." "You're an attorney!" % A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. % A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun. % A bottle of sweat for every bottle of wine. % A brave man is sometimes a desperado; a bully is always a coward. -Haliburton % A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate. % A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. % A bureaucrat's castle is his desk ... and parking place. Proceed cautiously when changing either. -Douglas Evelyn % A camel is a horse designed by committee. A brontosaurus is a salamander designed to Mil-Spec. % A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. % A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project will only take twice as long. % A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. % A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. % A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn't act that way very often. % A chase always involves two parts: first breaking contact, second the retiring action to divorce oneself from the incident. -Robert A. Heinlein % A chicken doesn't stop scratching just because the worms are scarce. -John Peers % A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten. -Doug Larson % A child miseducated is a child lost. -John F. Kennedy % A child of 5 could understand this! Fetch me a child of 5. % A christian in this world is but gold in the ore; at death the pure gold is melted out and separated and the dross cast away and consumed. -Flavel % A christian is the highest style of man. -Young % A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. % 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 clean limerick is a contradiction in terms. % A clean, neat, and orderly work place is a sure sign of a sick mind. % A closed mouth gathers no foot. % A clown is a clown and will always be a clown. -Babbaluche the cobbler % A college education shows a man how little other people know. -Haliburton % A column about errors will contain errors. -Bill Gold % A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. % A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour. -Elbert Hubbard % A committee is an animal with a hundred stomachs and no brains. % A company in California has started to market "camouflage toilet paper" for use in the woods and plans to run testimonials from hunters who claim they have been shot at while using ordinary toilet paper (by hunters who mistook them for white-tailed deer). (From 'News of the Weird" in the San Jose Mercury News) % A company is known by the people it keeps. % A component's degree of reliability is directly proportional to it's ease of accessibility (the harder it is to get to, the more often it breaks down). -Johnathon Waddell % A compromise is the art of dividing the cake in such a way that each one thinks he is getting the biggest piece. % A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do. % A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. % A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact. -Gigo % A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. % 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 consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home. % A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. -John M. Dyer % A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -Ben Franklin % A coup that is known in advance is a coup that does not take place. % A couple of men go to rob a bank. They back their car up to the doors of the bank, tie a chain around the door handles, then around their fender, then hit the gas. The fender rips off the car and they panic and speed away. The police recovered the fender AND THE LICENSE PLATE and tracked down the puzzled crooks. % A cow eats without a knife. % A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage. -Marvin Kitman % A crisis is when you can't say, "Let's just forget the whole thing." -Ferguson % A critic is a person who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative people. There is logic in this; he is unbiased- he hates all creative people equally. -Lazarus Long % A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison And had an affair with a Saracen. She was not oversexed, Or jealous or vexed, She just wanted to make a comparison. % A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. -Oscar Wilde % A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. -H. L. Mencken % A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. -Edgar A. Shoaff % A cynic is one who will laugh at anything so long as it isn't funny. % A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? % A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine. % A day without sunshine is like night. % A deaf ear is the first symptom of a closed mind. % A diplomat and a stage magician are the two professions that have to have a high silk hat. All the tricks that either one of them have are in the hat, and all are known to other diplomats and magicians. % 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 diplomat's life is made up of three things: protocol, Geritol, and alcohol. % A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste. % A disagreeable task is its own reward. % A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". % A disfiguring car accident will improve your looks. % A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... % A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" % A dog is a dog except when he is facing you. Then he is Mr. Dog. -Haitian Farmer % A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -Ogden Nash % A dress that zips up the back will bring a husband and wife together. -James H. Boren % A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic. -George Eliot % A fail-safe circuit will destroy others. % A fake fortune teller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. -Lazarus Long % A falling body always rolls to the most inaccessible spot. -Theodore M. Bernstein % A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. % A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -Sir Winston Churchill % A father in Georgia called his local IRS office to ask if he could deduct the cost of his daughter's wedding as "a total loss". % A feature is a bug with seniority. -Dave Bartley % A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind. -Garrick % A few books are all right, like wine, but too much can be bad. Books break down brains. % A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself. -Salvor Hardin % A fit of anger is as fatal to dignity as a dose of arsenic to life. -Dr. Holland % A flattering painter, who made it his care to draw men as they ought to be, not as they are. -Oliver Goldsmith % A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a high mountain: everything appears small to him and he appears small to everybody. -Professor Leader W. Matsch % 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. -George Bernard Shaw % A fool, indeed, has great need of a title; it teaches men to call him Count and Duke, and to forget his proper name of Fool. -Crowne % 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 foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -Samuel Johnson % A foot is a device for finding furniture in the dark. % A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -D. Gries % A free people always has the right to dismiss its rulers, whom it regards as its servants, at any time. -Harry V. Jaffa % A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. -Adlai Stevenson % A friend asks only for your time, not your money. % A friend of a friend was horrified to find out, at the age of twenty-five, that his life line was extremely short. When he tried to lengthen it (with his trusty Victorinox) he bled to death. % A friend of mine stopped smoking, drinking, overeating, and chasing women- all at the same time. It was a lovely funeral. % A friend to everybody is a friend to nobody. % A friend will let you hold the ladder while he goes up on the roof to install your new TV antenna, which is the biggest son of a bitch you ever saw. % A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of life insurance coverage you did for the half the price and his is non-cancelable. % A friend with weed is a friend indeed. % A gen'ral sets his army in array in vain, unless he fight and win the day. -Denham % A generation which ignores history has no past - and no future. % A gentleman does things no gentleman should do in a way only a gentleman can. -Luigi Banzini % A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness; genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art. -Chesterfield % A gentleman is a man who can support his own weight on his hands. % A gift of flowers will soon be made to you. Don't eat them this time. % A girl with psychic powers, She said "T-Bone, what's your sign?" I blinked and answered "Neon" - I thought I'd blow her mind. - Tom "T-Bone" Stankus % A good USENET motto would be a. Together, a strong community. b. Computers R Us. c. I'm sick of programming, I think I'll just screw around for a while on company time. % A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. -Milton % A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness. -Else Schiaparelli % A good dinner sharpens wit, while it softens the heart. -Doran % A good imitation is the most perfect originality. -Voltaire % A good leader inspires others with confidence in him; a great leader inspires them with confidence in themselves. % A good name will wear out; a bad one may be turned; a nickname lasts forever. -Zimmerman % A good neighbor is one who will watch your vacation slides all evening without telling you that he has been there. % A good place to start is where you are. -Charles Wolf, Jr. % A good teacher has been defined as one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. -Thomas J. Carruthers % A good word is an easy obligation, but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs us nothing. -Tillotson % A good workman is known by his tools. % A goodly apple rotten at the heart; O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! -Shakespeare % A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. -Barry Goldwater % A grave, wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul. -Hawthorne % A gray eye is still and sly; A roguish eye is the brown; The eye of blue is ever true; But in the black eye's sparkling spell Mystery and mischief dwell. % A great fortune is a great slavery. -Seneca % A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -William James % A great name for a new country song: If I'd Shot You Sooner, I'd Be Out of Jail by Now. % A great source of error is the judging of events by abstract calculations, which though geometrically true are false as they relate to the concerns of beings governed more by passions and prejudice than by an enlightened sense of their interests. -Alexander Hamilton % A guy I know has C:\BELFRY in his PATH on his PC. Why? Because that's where he keeps his .BATs. % A guy down the hall has a wooden stake in his window with a sign that reads "BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF VAMPIRE." % A guy has to get fresh once in a while so the girl doesn't lose her confidence. % A guy was lost on the Mall by the Washington Monument. He stopped a policeman and asked, "What side is the State Dept. on?" The cop answered, "Ours, I hope." % A habit of sneering marks the egotist, or the fool, or the knave, or all three. -Lavater % A heart unspotted is not easily daunted. -Shakespeare % A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment, unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising six weeks. -Southey % A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, and throats of brass, inspired with iron lungs. -Virgil % A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets. -Napoleon Bonaparte % A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. % A journey of a thousand miles begins with an argument over how to load the car. % A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers. % A kick, that scarce would move a horse may kill a sound divine. -Cowper % A kind word and a gun can do more than a kind word alone. -Al Capone % A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day; but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made. -Francis Bacon % A king's castle is his home. % A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. % A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free - The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" -Gopete Sherany % 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 lawyer and a pope died on the same day, and both went to heaven. When the pope noticed that the lawyer had a larger mansion, he questioned Saint Peter about the allocation of rewards. The justification was "Well, we've had 265 popes up here, but this is the FIRST lawyer!" % A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, "We did this ourselves." -Lao-Tse % A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. % A lie in time saves nine. % A lie should be trampled on and extinguished wherever found. I am for fumigating the atmosphere, when I suspect that falsehood, like pestilence, breathes around me. -Carlyle % A light heart lives long. -Shakespeare % A light supper, a good night's sleep and a fine morning have often made a hero out of the same man, who, by indigestion, a restless night and a rainy morning would have proved a coward. -Chesterfield % A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. % A lion among ladies is a most fearful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living. -Shakespeare % A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -Don Knuth % A little caution outflanks a large cavalry. -Bismarck % A little help at the right time is better than a lot of help at the wrong time. -Tevye % A little humility is arrogance. -Bill Gray % A little ignorance can go a long way. -Solomon Short % A little learning is a dangerous thing! -Alexander Pope % A little neglect may breed great mischief for the want of a shah, Iran was lost; for the want of Iran, the hostages were lost; and for the want of the hostages, I'd be lost. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth of philosophy bringeth a man's mind about to religion. -Francis Bacon % A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. -Fred Brooks, Jr % A little virtue will never hurt you. -Piet Hein % A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, is what we chiefly need. % A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. % A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -Lew Col % A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo. -Bill Gray % A lover's like a hunter- if the game be got with too much ease he cares not for't. -Mead % A machine becomes a human when you can't tell the difference. -D.A.R.Y.L. % A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew. -Herb Caen % A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. -Butler % A man devoid of religion, is like a horse without a bridle. % A man forgives only when he is in the wrong. % A man goes to rob a bank. He brings two things: a hand grenade and his dog. He pulls the pin, lobs the grenade at the doors of the bank and ducks behind cover. Rover retrieves the grenade, drops it at his master's feet, and bolts away for the next toss. BOOM! End of robbery. I think the dog got a citation from the city. % A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another, than to knock him down. -Johnson % A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows. -Wordsworth % A man is a person who will pay two dollars for a one-dollar item he wants. A woman will pay one dollar for a two-dollar item she doesn't want. -William Binger % A man is average when he can see the other man's faults; he becomes above average only when he can also see his own. % A man is never astonished that he doesn't know what another does, but he is surprised at the gross ignorance of the other in not knowing what he does. -Haliburton % A man is one who can't wait ten seconds for a woman but can wait all day for a fish. % A man is only as good as what he loves. -Saul Bellow % A man must first govern himself ere he be fit to govern a family, and his family ere he fit to bear the government in the commonwealth. -Sir Walter Raliegh % A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another's. -Jean Paul Richter % A man parks his car in front of the main entrance of the Congress. Inmediately, a member of the security team goes after him yelling: "Sir! Sir! You cannot park in here! All the congressmen are about to go out!" The man replies, "Don't worry. I have a good alarm in my car." % A man said to the universe, "Sir, I exist." However, replied the universe, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation. -Stephen Crane % A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage; people may be amused, and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought up against him upon some subsequent occasion. -Johnson % A man should be greater than some of his parts. % A man should choose a woman and an ox from his own country. % A man should never be ashamed to admit he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. -Pope % A man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because if you indulge this passion on some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you. -Plutarch % A man was praying to God one evening, and asked God, "God, in terms of the vastness of your power and knowledge, what does a million dollars mean to you?" God replied, "A penny." Then the man asked, "And, in terms of the vastness of your power and knowledge, what does a million years mean to you?" God replied, "A second." All excited, the man asked, "Well, then, can I borrow a penny?", to which God replied, "In a second." % A man who can't mind his own business is not to be trusted with the king's. -Saville % A man who checks out of the express lane with seven items is the same man who will wear Supp-Hose and park in the Reserved for Handicapped spaces. -Erma Bombeck % A man who cries is capable of any evil. % A man who has been the indisputable favourite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror. -Sigmund Freud % A man who is always forgetting his best intentions may be said to be a thoroughfare of good resolutions. -Mrs. Jameson % A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things that he does not know; and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pendant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. -Colton % A man who studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green. -Francis Bacon % A man who turns green has eschewed protein. % A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure. % A man without a woman is like a fish without a bicycle. % A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. % A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own. -Thomas Mann % A man's errors are what makes him amiable. -Goethe % A man's good breeding is the best security against another's bad manners. -Chesterfield % A man's legs must be long enough to reach the ground. -Abraham Lincoln % A man's reach should exceed his grasp... or what's a heaven for? -Robert Browning % A man's reputation is the opinion people have of him; his character is what he really is. -Jack Miner % A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. -Mohammed % A manuscript for a market in which no textbooks currently exist will be followed two weeks after contracting by an announcement of an identical book by your closest competitor. % A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. % A mathematician is showing a new proof he came up with to a large group of peers. After he's gone through most of it, one of the mathematicians says "Wait! That's not true. I have a counter-example!" He replies, "That's okay. I have two proofs." % A meeting is a place where people get together to talk about what they should be doing. % A meeting lasts at least one and a half hours, however short the agenda. -Denys Parsons % A member of your family will soon do something that will make your proud. % A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer. -Dean Acheson % A military disaster may produce a better postwar situation than victory. -Shimon Tzabar % A mind content both crown and kingdom is. -Greene % A mind may be a terrible thing to waste, But a waist is a terrible thing to mind. % A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -Thomas Jefferson % A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive. -Coleridge % A motion to adjourn is always in order. % 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?" % A narrow mind begest obstinacy, and we do not easily believe what we cannot see. -Dryden % A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century. -Baron de Montesquieu % A necessary item only goes on sale after you have purchased it at the regular price. -Sherry Graditor % 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 broom sweeps clean, but the old brush knows the corners. % A new cask will long preserve the tincture of the liquor with which it was first impregnated. -Horace % A new dramatist of the absurd Has a voice that will shortly be heard. I learn from my spies He's about to devise An unprintable three-letter word. % A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow. -Charlie Brower % A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan. % A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. -Max Planck % 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 newspaper story reports the following graffiti on a wall in Budapest: "Marx is dead. Lenin is dead. And I don't feel so good either." % A nickname is the heaviest stone the devil can throw at a man. % A nose that can see is worth two that can sniff. -Eugene Ionesco % A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient power-down sequence. An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer cool. % A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. % A pacifist is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described pacifists are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes they hoist the Jolly Roger. -Lazarus Long % A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and inflame; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so, that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them, that he would give all his life to possess them. What is the fond love of dearest friends compared to treasure? Is memory as strong as expectancy, fruition as hunger, gratitude as desire? -Thackeray % A parade should have bands or horse, but not both. -Nancy M. Wells % A pedestrian hit me and went under my car. % A pedestrian is a man who has two cars, a wife, and one or more teenage children. % A penny saved is ridiculous. % A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell. -George Bernard Shaw % A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. % A person needs an affair, just to break the monogamy. % A person over age 65 who drinks says that his doctor recommends it. -Bob Smith % A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. -G.C. Lichtenberg % A person who can't lead and won't follow makes a dandy roadblock. % A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal. % A phenomenon known to anyone who has ever lit fires: You can throw a burnt match out the window of your car and start a forest fire while you can use two boxes of matches and a whole edition of the Sunday paper without being able to start a fire under the dry logs in your fireplace. % A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in a fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician treats a patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant. -Seneca % A physicist is an atoms way of knowing about atoms. -George Wald % A piano is a piano is a piano is a piano. -Gertrude Steinway % A picture is a poem without words. -Horace % 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. % A piece of electronic equipment is housed in a beautifully designed cabinet, and at the side or on top is a little box containing the components which the designer forgot to make room for. -Denys Parsons % A pig ate his fill of acorns under an oak tree and then started to root around the tree. A crow remarked, "You should not do this. If you lay bare the roots, the tree will wither and die." "Let it die, said the pig. Who cares so long as there are acorns?" % A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt - A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt. When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, You'll never go wrong with a pig! -Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" % A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth. % A place you want to get to is always just off the edge of the map you happen to have handy. -Denys Parsons % A pleasing trembling thrills through all my blood Whene'er you touch me with your melting hand; But when you kiss, oh! 'tis not to be spoke. -Gildon % A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. % A poet begins in delight and ends in wisdom. -Robert Frost % A poet that fails in writing, becomes often a morose critic. The weak insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar. -Shenstone % A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. % A politician always abuses his own constituency and placates the opponent's. -Bob Smith % A politician will always tip off his true belief by stating the opposite at the beginning of the sentence. For maximum comprehension, do not start listening until the first clause is concluded. Begin instead at the word "but," which begins the second, or active, clause. This is the way to tell a liberal from a conservative- before they tell you. Thus: "I have always believed in a strong national defense, second to none, buts ..." (a liberal, about to propose a $20 billion defense cut). -Frank Mankiewicz % A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich. -Mrs. Browning % A poor plan can be made to look great when compared to a worse alternative. % A pregnancy will never occur when you have a low-paying job which you hate. -Erma Bombeck % A present, over which you will shed tears of joy, will come to you from a nasty little boy. % A pretty woman is a welcome guest. -Byron % A pride of lions A gaggle of geese An odd lot of programmers % A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." % A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. % A professor's enthusiasm for teaching the introductory course varies inversely with the likelihood of his having to do it. % A programmer at S.D.R.C., found the VAX very slow, don't you see. After typing "DEBUG", the VAX, it did chug. And it came back in February. % A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. -IEEE Grid newsmagazine % A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty. -Hume % A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. % A prudent question is one-half wisdom. -Francis Bacon % 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 pun is the lowest form of humor- when you don't think of it first. -Oscar Levant % A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as you could blow it in may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. -Donald A. Metz % A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two. -Seneca % A quick response is worth a thousand logical responses. -Merle P. Martin % A reactionary is a man whose political opinions always manage to keep up with yesterday. % A real friend is a person who, when you've made a fool of yourself, lets you forget it. % 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 realist lets circumstances decide which end of the telescope to look through. % A really good bass is the hardest drunk to find. -Robert Benchley % A recent moralist has affirmed that the human heart is like a jug. No mortal can look into its recessed, and you can only judge of its purity by what comes out of it. % 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. % A recession is when my neighbor loses his job. A depression is when I lose my job. A panic is when my wife loses her job. -Edgar R. Fiedler % A record of data is useful- it indicates that you've been working. % A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of power. % A reformer is a guy who rides through a sewer in a glass bottomed boat. % A reformer wants his conscience to be your guide. % A religion can no more afford to degrade its Devil than to degrade its God. % A reserved lover, it is said, always makes a suspicious husband. -Oliver Goldsmith % A reverence for life does not require one to respect nature's obvious mistakes. % A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -Ramsey Clark % A river flowing through one of our large Eastern cities is so polluted it is considered a fire hazard! % A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. % 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 rose by any other name would still be a flower. % A rose is a rose is a rose, but junk is not junk is not junk. It is never quite what you think it is. -Richard N. Farmer % A satirist is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people. -Peter McArthur % A scar nobly got is a good livery of honor. -Shakespeare % A school should not be a preparation for life. A school should be life. -Elbert Hubbard % A secret in his mouth, Is like a wild bird put into a cage; Whose door no sooner opens, but 'tis out. -Johnson % A seminar on Time Travel will be held two weeks ago. % 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 sentence well couched takes both the sense and the understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom. -Fletham % A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. -Professor Charles P. Issawi % A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose. % A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard -Prof. Steiner % A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. -Joseph Stalin % A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aide may contribute to the advancement of his fortune. -La Bruyere % A smattering of philosophy had liberated his [Nero's] intellect without maturing his judgment. -Tacitus % A smoker is always attracted to the non-smoking section. -Raj K. Dhawan % A soft answer turneth away wrath. % A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -Mark Twain % A stagnant science is at a standstill. % A statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. -Addison % A stranger at your gate is grateful for the hospitality of your house. % A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -O'Henry % A strong memory is generally coupled with infirm judgment. -Montaigne % A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. % A study of the science of technology defines what is possible; a study of the economics of technology establishes which of the possibilities is practical and useful. -Montgomery Phister % A successful American spends more supporting the government than a family. % A successful person is one who went ahead and did the thing the rest of us never quite got around to. % A successful symposium depends on the ratio of meeting to eating. % A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -S. C. Johnson % A sunny temper gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud. -Guthrie % A suspicious parent makes an artful child. -Haliburton % A system tends to grow in terms of complexity rather than of simplification, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable. -Tom Gibb % A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself. -Jessamyn West (Irony is when you buy a suit with two pair of pants, and then burn a hole in the coat.) % A theory is better than its explanation. -H. P. Woodward % A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterwards. -Jean Paul Richter % A toad-eater's an imp I don't admire. -Dr. Woolcott % 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 touchstone to determine the actual worth of an intellectual: find out how he feels about astrology. -Lazarus Long % A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. % A translated sentence from a Russian chess book: A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played. % A tree is a tree. How many more do you need to look at? -Ronald Reagan, 1966 % A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. % A true friend will see you through when others see that you are through. % A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A trusted friend will outlive you. % A two-timing husband is one who's pleased to make his wife's acquaintances. % A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem. % A university is a place where men of principle outnumber men of honor. -Ernest May % A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -John Ciardi % A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -Tenessee Williams % A verbal contract isn't worth the paper its printed on. -Sam Goldwyn % A very intelligent turtle Found programming UNIX a hurdle The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he, And that's not saying much for the turtle. % A virtuous life is its own punishment. % A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. Too bad you can't keep your mind on the down to earth things. % A volcano gnome seems to walk straight out of the wall and says, "I have a very busy appointment schedule and little time to waste on computer hacks, but for a very small fee, I'll show you how to logoff. % A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones. -Chesterfield % A wedding ring is like a tourniquet, it cuts off your circulation. % A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. % A well regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors. -Addison % A well-bred dog generally bows to strangers. % A winner goes through a problem; a loser goes around, but never past, it. % A winner isn't nearly as afraid of losing as a loser is secretly afraid of winning. % A winner makes commitments; a loser makes promises. % A winner says "Lets find out."; a loser says, "Nobody knows." % A winner works harder than a loser and has more time; A loser is always too busy to do what is necessary. % A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from the top of a mountain. % A wise man who stands firm is a statesman, a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe. % A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests. -Niccolo Machiavelli % A wit's a feather, and a chief's a god; An honest man is the noblest work of God. -Alexander Pope % A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention. % A witty saying proves nothing. -Voltaire % A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the woman he couldn't. % A woman, like a good piece of music, should have a solid end. -F. Shubert % A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. % A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe. -Lazarus Long % A.I. hackers do it with robots. % AAAAA: An organization for drunks who drive % 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 % AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid. % ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE -- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE % 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. % ASCII is our god, and Unix is his profit. % ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI. % Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. % Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short. -John Henry Newman % Ability is of little account without opportunity. -Napoleon Bonaparte % Ability wins us the esteem of the true men; luck that of the people. -La Rochefoucauld % Abley's Explanation: Marriage is the only union that cannot be organized. Both sides think they are management. % About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -Herbert Hoover % Abruptness is eloquence in parting, when spinning out the time is but the weaving of new sorrow. -Sir John Suckling % Absence and death are the same-only that in death there is no suffering. -Walter S. Landor % Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire. -La Rochefoucauld % Absence makes the heart go wander. % Absence of occupation is not rest. A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd. -Cowper % Absent: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. % Absentee: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder. % Absolute freedom is being able to do what you please without considering anyone except the wife and kids, the company and the boss, neighbors and friends, the police and government, the doctor, and the church. % Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song. % Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Abstaining is favorable both to the head and to the pocket. -Horace Greeley % Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Abuse is the weapon of the vulgar. -Samuel Griswold Goodrich % Abuse: the bitter clamour of two evil tongues. -Shakespeare % Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. -Wallace Sayre % Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. % Accident: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. % Accidents cause History. If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. -Mike Harding, The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac % According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns." % 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 probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China. The words Coca-Cola translate into Chinese as either (depending on the inflection) wax-fattened mare or bite the wax tadpole. Bite the wax tadpole. There is a sort of rough justice, is there not? The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to bite a wax tadpole. Coke - it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad, but broad satiric vistas do not open up. -John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle % According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime. -David Letterman % 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: A bagpipe with pleats. % Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty. -Charles Simmons % Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction. -Adlai Stevenson % Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood. -Tyron Edwards % Accuracy: The vice of being right. % Accurst ambition, how dearly I have bought you. -John Dryden % Achilles' Biological Findings: 1) If a child looks like his father, that's heredity. If he looks like a neighbor, that's environment. 2) A lot of time has been wasted arguing over what came first. The chicken or the egg. It was undoubtedly the rooster. % Acid - better living through chemistry. % Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality. % Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Act upon your impulses, but pray that they may be directed by God. -Emerson Tennent % Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity. -Lavater % Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. % Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. -Benjamin Disraeli % Action, to be effective, must be directed to clearly conceived ends. -Jawaharial Nehru % Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last age. -Sir Thomas Denham % 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 is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist. -Jean Icbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie % Ada was invented because Vogon poetry wasn't deadly enough. % Ada: 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." % Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation. -Mahatma Gandhi % Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. (Add little to little and there will be a big pile.) -Ovid % Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. -Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. % Administration maintains the status quo. -Thomas L. Martin % Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Adolescence: 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: To venerate expectantly. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Adult: Someone old enough to know better. % Advanced Design: copy writer doesn't understand it % Adversity borrows its sharpest sting from our impatience. -Bishop Horne % Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant. -Horace % Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy. -Shakespeare % Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass? % Advice from an old carpenter: Measure twice and saw once. % Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude. -Sallust % After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. -Freeman Dyson % 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 [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone. -Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. % After a raise in salary you will have less money at the end of each month than you had before. -Dr. R. F. Gumperson % After adding two weeks to the schedule for unexpected delays, add two more for the unexpected, unexpected delays. % After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done. % 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 all, what was Medea? Just another child custody case. -Frank Pierson % After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. % After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created. "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % After large expenditures of federal, state, and county funds; after much confusion generated by detours and road blocks; after greatly annoying the surrounding population with noise, dust, and fumes, the previously existing traffic jam is relocated by one half-mile. -Alan Deitz % After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. Just in case. % After the correction has been found to be in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation. % 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. % After wisdom comes wit. -Evan Esar % Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. % Afternoon: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. % Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. % Against stupidity, even the gods themselves contend in vain. -Isaac Azimov % Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. % Age is a tyrant, who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. -La Rochefoucauld % Age sits with decent grace upon his visage, and worthily becomes his silver locks; he bears the marks of many years well spent, of virtue truth well tried, and wise experience. -Rowe % Ah! curst ambition! to thy lures we owe, All the great ills that mortals bear below. -Teckell % Ah! the youngest heart has the same waves within it as the oldest; but without the plummet which can measure the depths. -Richter % Aide: Sir, the poor are outside protesting your budget cuts. Clinton: Tell them they'll have to help themselves. Aide: Sir, Social Security wants another $30 billion. Clinton: Tell them to help themselves. % Ain't no horse can't be rode; ain't no cowboy can't be throwed. % Air Family: Describes the false sense of community experienced among coworkers in an office environment. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Air is water with holes in it. % Airy ambition, soaring high. -Sheffield % Alas! while the body stands so broad and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated? Alas! this was, too, a breath of God, bestowed in heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded! -Carlyle % Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed % Alas, reason is not effective against faith, or against searches for miracles by the desperate. -Dr. Michael B. Shimkin % Albert Einstein was a late talker as a child. His parents were understandably worried. finally at the supper table one evening, He broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot." Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he never said a word before. Young Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order." % Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." % Alden's Laws: 1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy. 2) Always be backlit. 3) Sit down whenever possible. % 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. % Alexander Hamilton started the U. S. Treasury with nothing- and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. -Will Rogers % Alexander the Great was a great general. Great generals are forewarned. Forewarned is forearmed. Four is an even number. Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. % Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. % Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -Peggy Joyce % All American cars are basically Chevrolets. -Herb Caen % All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking. % All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. -Fran Lebowitz % 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 New: Parts not interchangeable with previous design % All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm place to shift. % All bicycles weigh 50 pounds: A 30-pound bicycle needs a 20-pound lock and chain. A 40-pound bicycle needs a 10-pound lock and chain. A 50-pound bicycle needs no lock and chain. % All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others. -Alan Truscott % All busses heading in the opposite direction drive off the face of the earth and never return. -John Corcoran % All cats are grey in the dark. % All ceremonies are, in themselves, very silly things; but yet a man of the world should know them. They are the outworks of manners and decency, which would be too often broken in upon, if it were not for that defense, which keeps the enemy at a proper distance. It is for this reason that I always treat fools with great ceremony: true good breeding not being a sufficient barrier against them. -Chesterfield % All committee reports conclude that, "It is not prudent to change the policy [or procedure, or organization, or whatever] at this time." -Thomas L. Martin % All countries hate their immediate neighbors and like the next but one. (For example, the Poles hate the Germans, Russians, Czechs, and Lithuanians, and they like the French, Hungarians, Italians, and Latvians.) -Professor Charles P. Issawi % All courageous animals are carnivorous, and greater courage is to be expected in a people, such as the English, whose food is strong and hearty, than in the half starved commonalty of other countries. -Sir W. Temple % All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world. -Tennyson % All extremists should be taken out and shot. % All files, papers, memos, etc., that you save will never be needed until such time as they are disposed of, when they will become essential and indispensable. -John Corcoran % All generalizations stink. % All gods have feet of clay. % All government programs have three things in common: a beginning, a muddle, and no end. % All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. % All hierarchies contain administrators and managers, and they tend to appear at alternating levels in the hierarchy. -Thomas L. Martin % All in all it's just another brick in the wall... % All interference in human conduct has the potential for causing harm- no matter how innocuous the procedure. % All is but lip wisdom which wants experience. -Sir Philip Sydney % All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss. -Douglas Adams % All math classes begin at 8 AM; also, movies on Federal Government. -M. M. Johnston % All men are born naked. -Carlos Eduardo Novaes % All men can be lead to believe the lie they want to believe. -Italo Bombolini % All men can be reached by flattery, even God can (what, after all, is prayer?). -Italo Bombolini % All men have the right to wait in line. -Carlos Eduardo Novaes % 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 us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of out youth. -Shelley % All of you out there who believe in telepathy, raise your hand. All right. Now, everyone who believes in telekinesis...raise MY hand. % All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States. -Vic Gold % All our actions take their hues from the complexion of the heart. As landscapes their variety from light. -W. T. Bacon % All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain. -Epictetus % All policy interventions in social problems produce the intended effect, if the research is carried out by those implementing the policy or their friends. -James Q. Wilson % All power corrupts, but we need electricity. % All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: This time it will surely run, or I just found the last bug. -Frederick Brooks, Jr. % 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 real programs contain errors until proven otherwise, which is impossible. -Tom Gibb % All right, go lie upon the beach, To bake beyond the water's reach; But if you're blistered when you quit, Remember that you basked for it. -Anthony B. Lake % All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end. % All science is concerned with the relationship of cause and effect. Each scientific discovery increases man's ability to predict the consequences of his actions and thus his ability to control future events. -Laurence J. Peter % 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 stressed out and no one to choke. % All students who obtain a B will feel cheated out of an A. -M. M. Johnston % All sunshine makes a desert. % All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. % All technology expands the space, contracts the time, and destroys the working group. -Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy % All that glisters is not gold. Gilded tombs do worms enfold. -Shakespeare % All that glitters has a high refractive index. % All that time is lost which might be better employed. -Rousseau % All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" -Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" % All the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs! -David E. Lundstrom, A Few Good Men From Univac % All the lights are frozen; The cursor blinks blandly. Soon, I shall see the dump. % All the news that fits, we print. -A. E. Newman % All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British quality. % 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 things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening. -Alexander Woolcott % All the troubles of man comes from his not knowing how to sit still. -Pascal % All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly. % All the world's a VAX, And all the coders merely butchers; They have their exits and their entrails; And one int in his time plays many widths, His sizeof being N bytes. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, And shining morning face, creeping like slug Unwillingly to school. -A Very Annoyed PDP-11 % All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -Sean O'Casey % All these black people are screwing up my democracy. -Ian Smith % All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door. % All things are subject to fixed laws. -Marcus Manilius % All things being equal, all things are never equal. -Marshall L. Smith % All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. -Matthew 7:12 % 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 those things which are now held to be of the greatest antiquity, were at one time new; and what we today hold up by example, will rank hereafter as precedent. -Tacitus % All those who are opposed to the plan I am about to propose will reply by saying "I resign." % All true wisdom is found in computer fortune programs. % 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 % All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. -Aristotle % All women are beautiful, some are just less beautiful than others. % All work and no play, will make you a manager. % All you have to do to see the accuracy of my thesis is look around you. Look, in particular, at the people who, like you, are making average incomes for doing average jobs - bank vice presidents, insurance salesmen, auditors, secretaries of defense - and you'll realize they all dress the same way, essentially the way the mannequins in the Sears menswear department dress. Now look at the real successes, the people who make a lot more money than you - Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, anybody from Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, and so on. They all dress funny - and they all succeed. Are you catching on? -Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" % All your fantasies will come true after your imagination is surgically removed. % All zoos actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -H. L. Mencken % Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Allow no man to be so free with as you as to praise you to your face. Your vanity by this means will want its food. At the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: where you now receive one compliment, you will then receive twenty civilities. -Steele % Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble. -Samuel Johnson % Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. -Agnes Allen % Almost nothing is impossible if you put the screws to the right people. % Alone: In bad company. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Alternate rest and labor long endure. -Ovid % Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance. -La Rochefoucauld % Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office. -Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. % Always distrust offices not under your jurisdiction which say that they are there to serve you. "Support" offices in a bureaucracy tend to grow in size and make demands on you out of proportion to their service and in the end require more effort on your part than their service is worth. -Douglas Evelyn % Always give your people the credit that is rightfully theirs. To do otherwise is both morally and ethically dishonest. % Always hire a rich attorney. % Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. -Lazarus Long % Always pray that your opposition be wicked. In wickedness, there is a strong strain toward rationality. Therefore, there is always the possibility, in theory, of handling the wicked by outthinking them. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. % Always rise from the table with an appetite, and you will never sit down without one. -William Penn % Always run a yellow light. % Always sort the small file first. -Dick Munroe % Always stay in with the outs. -David Halberstan % Always store beer in a dark place. % Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not. % Always tell him he is handsome, especially if he is not. % Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. % Always verify your witchcraft. % Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. % Ambidextrous instructors will erase with one hand while writing with the other. -M. M. Johnston % Ambidextrous: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Ambition is a lust that's never quenched, grows more inflamed, and madder by enjoyment. -Otway % Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -Charlie McCarthy % Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; To be sublimely great or to be nothing. -Southey % Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals. -Denham % Ambition usually progresses through the following stages: to be like Dad, to be a millionaire, to make enough to pay the bills, to hang on long enough to draw a pension. % Ambition's like a circle on the water, which never ceases to enlarge itself, 'till by broad spreading it disperse to naught. -Shakespeare % Ambition, idly vain; revenge and malice swell her train. -Penrose % Ambition: The dropsy'd thirst of empire, wealth or fame. -Nugent % Ambition: The glorious frailty of the noble mind. -Hoole % America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. -Oscar Wilde % America is the only country left where we teach languages so that no pupil can speak them. -John Erskine % America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde % 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 % America's best buy for a quarter is a telephone call to the right man. % America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? -Allen Ginsberg % American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense. -Ed Howe % Americans are an energetic, ingenious, creative people. One index to this fact is that since the establishment of the patent system in 1836, there have been more than 3.75 million patents issued. % Americans have always attached particular value to the word "neighbor." While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many. -Lady Bird Johnson % Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. % Amusements to virtue are like breezes of air to the flame- gentle ones will fan it, but strong ones will put it out. -David Thomas % An A is easily obtained if a student calls his instructor "Professor." -M. M. Johnston % An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops. % 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 able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions; he is neither hot nor timid. -Chesterfield % An abstract term is like a valise with a false bottom, you may put in it what ideas you please, and take them out again, without being observed. % An acceptable level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. % An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case. God has written all the books. % An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. % An article in the Spring 1990 issue of Arlo Guthrie's Rolling Blunder Review describing the risks of reading RBR, concludes with the flawlessly logical sentences: "In other words, if our readers understand that they do not understand what they are reading then they must possess an understanding which is superior to the meaning which caused that misunderstanding. "Only a sense of humor stands between pain and pleasure. Nothing worth reading can be read." % An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. % An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune in which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. -Robert Louis Stevenson % An atheist is but a mad ridiculous derider of piety; but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action. -Alexander Pope % An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuff his lover's mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is not a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." % An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know. % An economist is a man who would marry Farrah Fawcett for her money. -Edgar R. Fiedler % An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. % An egg without salt is like a kiss from a beardless man. % An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. % An elephant: a mouse built to government specifications. % An employer was asked to write a recommendation for a worker who was leaving and was not known for putting out a great deal of effort while on the job. Since the employer did not want to lie and make this person better than he was, he thought a while before writing anything. Finally, he found just the right words: "You would indeed be fortunate to get this person to work for you." % An empty bag cannot win in New York. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. % An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted. -Arthur Miller % An error that can creep into a calculation, will. Also, it will always be in the direction that will cause the most damage to the calculation. -M. M. Johnston % An evil at its birth, is easily crushed, but it grows and strengthens by endurance. -Cicero % An example is not proof. % An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch He wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha. -Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" % An exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER proves it. -Edmund C. Berkeley % An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded. -Alexander Pope % An executive will always return to work from lunch early if no one takes him. % An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. % An experiment is reproducible until another laboratory tries to repeat it. -Dr. Alexander Kohn % An expert is someone who can take something you already knew and make it sound confusing. % An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation is a sort of ingratitude. -La Rochefoucauld % An eye like Mars, to threaten and command. -Shakespeare % An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. % An idea, like a ghost (according to the common notion of a ghost) must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. -Charles Dickens % An incompetent traitor is no danger. It is rather the capable men who must be watched. -Brodrig % An inexorable upward movement leads administrators to higher salaries and narrower spans of control. -David Riesman % An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -Albert Camus % An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished. % An oath is a recognizance to heaven, binding us over in the courts above, to plead to the indictment of our crimes, that those who 'scape this should suffer there. -Sothern % An object never serves the same function as its image- or its name. -Rene Magritte % An object will fall so as to do the most damage. % An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him. -Alexander Pope % An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" -Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % An old car that served you so well will continue to serve you until you have just put four new tires under it and then will fall apart. -Erma Bombeck % An old man and his wife were driving down the road. The man was sitting on the left, where the driver usually sits, and his wife was sitting on the right, where the passenger customarily sits. As they drove along, the wife started reminiscing, saying, "You know, we don't sit close together any more, the way we did when we were young. We never cuddle up these days." The man turns to her and says, "I ain't moved." % An old spinster was asked what she liked most in men. "Appearance," she replied "and the sooner the better". % An older lady is mugged and having no cash on hand she asks her attacker if he will take a check. The mugger agrees, so she calmly asks who she should make the check out to. Not thinking clearly, the mugger gives the old lady his real name. The man is arrested in his home several hours later with the check still in his wallet. % An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true. % An optimist is a person who goes to the window every morning and says, "Good morning, God!" The pessimist goes to the window every morning and says, "Good god, morning!" % An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood. % An original idea can never emerge from a committee in the original. -Charles P. Boyle % An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. % An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge. % An ugly carpet will last forever. -Erma Bombeck % An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. -Van Roy % An unexpectedly easy-to-handle sequence of events will be immediately followed by an equally long sequence of trouble. -Charles Phelps % Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. % And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?" % And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgment of God upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of criminal at the bar of justice. % And he gave it as his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. -Jonathon Swift % And here I stand; judge, my masters. -Shakespeare % And here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before. -Johann W. von Goethe % And now for the weather, which is every bit as yucky as the news. % And oftentimes, excusing of a fault, Doth make a fault the worse by the excuse; As patches set upon a little breach, Discredit more in hiding of the fault, Than did the fault before it was so patch'd. -Shakespeare % And science, we should insist, better than any other discipline, can hold up to its students and followers an ideal of patient devotion to the search for objective truth, with vision unclouded by personal or political motive. -Sir Henry Hallett Dalt % And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. -Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" % And though all cry down self, none means his ownself in a literal sense. -Butler % And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. -Shakespeare % And virtue is her own reward. -Prior % And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? % And what is fame, that flutt'ring noisy sound, but the cold lie of universal vogue? -H. Smith % And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury. -Shakespeare % Anergy-State: Any state of the Universe, or any portion of it, which requires the expenditure of human effort or ingenuity to bring it into line with human desires, needs, or pleasures. -Dr. John Gall % Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy. -Tom Lehrer % Anger is blood, pour'd and perplexed into a froth. -Davenant % Angular momentum makes the world go round. % Animalens Inc. of Wellesley, Mass., markets red contact lenses for chickens (at 20 cents a pair), pointing to medical studies showing that chickens seeing red during the day are happier and eat less food. A spokesman said the lenses will improve world egg-laying productivity by $600 million a year. % Ankh if you love Isis. % Anoint: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Answers price list: Answers......................................... $1.00 Answers (requiring thought)..................... $2.00 Answers (correct)............................... $3.00 Dumb looks ..................................... FREE! % Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: 1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). 2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. 3) I don't know. 4) Who cares? 5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. 6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1024 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). % Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. % Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes. % Anti-Sabbatical: A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a limited period of time (often one year). The intention is to raise enough funds to partake in another, more personally meaningful activity such as watercolor sketching in Crete or designing computer kniit sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely infomed of intentions. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Anti-Victim Device (AVD): A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise conservative outfit which announces to the world that one still has a spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties and earrings (on men), feminist buttons, noserings (women), and now almost completely extinct teeny weeny rattail haircut (both sexes). -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Anticipated events never live up to expectations. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Anticipation of problems is half the battle. And the only way to anticipate is to think. % Antisesquipedalial: Opposed to the use of large words. % Antonym: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. % Ants would starve in your house if ants would come into it. % Anxiety: The first time you can't do it a second time. Panic: The second time you can't do it the first time. % Any argument worth making within the bureaucracy must be capable of being expressed in a single declarative sentence that is obviously true once stated. -John McNaughton % Any associated supporting element maximizes the probability of project success, yet minimizes cost and time required for the subjective decomposition criteria. Similarly, the interrelation of system and/or subsystem technologies presents extremely interesting challenges to anticipated fourth-generation equipment. Evidently, the incorporation of additional program constraints cannot be overemphasized when taking into account the subsystem compatibility testing. We can see, in retrospect, the use of hierarchical structures relating to resource ownership and allocation adds overriding performance constraints to the concept of program robustness. Specifically, the effectiveness of marginal isoquant analysis mandates operations-level consideration of the differentiation between requirements definition and object coordination. Notably, a large portion of interface coordination communication presents extremely interesting challenges to the not insignificant implementation limitations. Simply stated, the use of hierarchical structures relating to resource ownership and allocation cannot be overemphasized when taking into account assumptions that represent more than one interface. It is further assumed that any associated supporting element may only become apparent when we explicitly design the preliminary qualification limit. Without going into the technical details, a correct and consistent dual description of an abstract interface is not free to define the principles of effective resource management. Interestingly enough, the characterization of specific criteria recognizes other systems' importance and the necessity for overall program marketability. -Doublespeak, A nifty computer program % Any bus that can be the wrong bus will be the wrong bus. All others are out of service or full. -John Corcoran % Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -Charles McCabe % Any college that would take your son, he should be too proud to go to. -Erma Bombeck % Any discovery is more likely to be exploited by the wicked than applied by the virtuous. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. -Richard Schickel % 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 criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do. -Dale Carnegie % Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it. -Henry David Thoreau % Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. % Any given program, when running correctly, is obsolete. % Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare- most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "backseat-driver syndrome." -Lazarus Long % Any great truth can, and eventually will, be expressed as a cliche. A cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. -Solomon Short % Any improbable event which would create maximum confusion if it did occur, will occur. -H. S. Kindler % Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either totally obscure or completely mysterious. -Dr. Fyodor Flap % Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one. -Sam Rayburn % Any large system is going to be operating most of the time in failure mode. -Dr. John Gall % Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment- the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is. -Jorge Luis Borges % Any line, however short, is still too long. % Any man can prove he has good judgment by saying you have. % Any man that can write, may answer a letter. -Shakespeare % Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. -W. C. Fields % Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than against them is to attain literacy. -Alan Kay, Scientific American % Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good. % Any opposing views may simply go to hell. % Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. -Sydney J. Hairs % Any pitcher who throws at a batter and deliberately tries to hit him is a Communist. -Alvin Dark % Any plumbing pipes you choose to replace during renovation will prove to be in excellent condition; those you decide to leave in place will be rotten. -Lew Phelps % Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent. -Lazarus Long % Any race that doesn't use all its potential will always stop short of its possibilities. -Jose Torres % Any renovation project on an old house will cost twice as much and take three times as long as originally estimated. -Lew Phelps % Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.) % Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. % Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic. -Arthur C. Clarke % Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. -Milt Barber % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -Andy Finkel, computer guy % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke % Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of appropriate additional assumptions. -Robert E. Schenk % Any time you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers. % Any tool dropped while repairing an automobile will roll under the car to the vehicle's exact geographic center. % Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Any vacuum cleaner would sooner take the nap off a rug than remove white threads from a dark rug. % Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her. % Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. -George Ade % Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. -David Broder % 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 be great with money. With money, greatness is not a talent but an obligation. The trick is to be great without money. -Italo Bombolini % 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 hate. it costs to love. -John Williamson % 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 entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people. -Jean de la Fontaine % Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it. -Alvin Toffler % Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin. -John von Neumann % 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 % Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -Samuel Goldwyn % Anyone who has begun to think places some portion of the world in jeopardy. % Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -Douglas Adams % Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. -Eleanor Roosevelt % Anyone who says he isn't going to resign, four times, definitely will. -John Kenneth Galbraith % Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never tried taking candy from a baby. -Robin Hood % Anything anybody can say about America is true. -Emmett Grogan % Anything free is worth what you pay for it. % Anything hit with a big enough hammer will fall apart. -Robert A. Jackson % Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. % Anything is impossible, if you don't attempt it. % Anything is possible, but nothing is easy. -Bill Gray % 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 left over today will be needed tomorrow to pay an unexpected bill. -Betty Canary % Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well. -G. Bell % Anything scarce is valuable; praise for example! % Anything that begins well ends badly. Anything that begins badly ends worse. % Anything that satisfies its external specifications, no matter how inefficient it is, is a success; don't argue with it. % Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. You can do better the next time. % Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. % Anything you can do I can do better; anything I can do YOU can do better; anything I can do I can do better; anything IBM does will cost more money. % Anything, no matter how bad, will sound good if played back at a very high speed for a short time. -John Culshaw % Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things; first, an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite plan for carrying that ideal into practice. -Arnold Toynbee % Aphorism: A concise, clever statement. % Aphorism: a concise, clever statement. Afterism: a concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -James Alexander Thom % Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger's next movie is going to be about the lives of the world's great composers. The movie has Steven Seagal set to play Beethoven, Jean-Claude Van Damme will be Mozart, and when Arnie got wind of the project, he said... "I'll be Bach" % Appearances are all, my son. Appearances are all. % Appearances deceive and this one maxim is a standing rule: Men are not what they seem. -Harvard % Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones. -Colton % Aquadextrous: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes. -Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Arbitrary systems: Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing general can be said." % Archaeologists date anything! % Architectural Indigestion: The almost obsessive need to live in a 'cool' architectural environment. Frequently related objects of fetish include framed black-and-white art photography (Diane Arbus a favorite); simplistic pine furniture; matte black high-tech items such as TVs, stereos, and telephones; low-wattage ambient lighting; a lamp, a chair, or table that alludes to the 1950s; cut flowers with complex names. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Architecture is the printing press of all ages, and gives a history of the state in which it was conducted. -Lady Morgan % Architecture: Whatever we choose to implement. -FMS Project Leader % Are you a man or a mouse? Come on, squeak up! % Are you a offering a solution, or are you just another part of the problem? % Arguments seem futile to me, for behind every argument I have ever heard lies the astounding ignorance of someone. -Louis D. Brandeis % Arguments with furniture are rarely productive. -Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -Mickey Mouse % Arithmetical proofs of theorems that do not have arithmetical bases prove nothing. -G. O. Ashley % Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle. % Armanism: After Georgio Armani: an obsession with mimicking the seamless and (more importantly) *controlled* ethos of Italian couture. Lake Japanese Minimalism, Armanism reflects a profound inner need for control. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Army Law: If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; and if you can't pick it up, paint it green. % Arnold's Laws of Documentation: 1) If it should exist, it doesn't. 2) If it does exist, it's out of date. 3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. % 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 % Arriving with a large box of paper at a local recycling depot, I was reprimanded for not separating the paper of color from the white trash. % Art is I; science is we. -Claude Bernard % Art is anything you can get away with. -Marshall McLuhan. % Arthur's Laws of Love: 1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. 2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person. % Arthur's Laws of Love: Art is your fate; don't debate. % Artifact: Something only an art major would know. % Artifact: The only true fact in an experiment. % Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. % As I approached the intersection a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign has ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident. % As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, How many losses at Project MAC? % As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." % As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." % As a man may be eating all day, and for want of digestion is never nourished, so these endless readers may cram themselves in vain with intellectual food. -Dr. I. Watts % As a man of more than average caution, I have never felt absolutely secure until Evans and Novak have spoken. -John Kenneth Galbraith % As a member of the world conspiracy, you control your own future. % As ceremony is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance, so good breeding is an expedient to make fools and wise men equal. -Steele % As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men. -Chesterfield % As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers. -Plato % As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every minute of time. -Mason % 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 good almost kill a man, as kill a good book; who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself. -Milton % As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. -Edward Gibbon % As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress. -J. Robert Oppenheimer % 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 tomorrow, 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, on the IRS switchover to a new computer % As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % As riches and favor forsake a man, we discover him to be a fool, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity. -La Bruyere % As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of demand. % As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949 % As soon as you mention something, if it's good, it goes away ... if it's bad, it happens. % As the dimensions of the tree are not always regulated by the size of the seed, so the consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. -Colton % As the economy gets better, everything else gets worse. -Art Buchwald % As the expected time of birth drew near, the mother-to-be asked her obstetrician, "Will my husband be permitted to stay with me during my delivery?" "Certainly," the doctor answered. "The father should always be present at the moment of birth." "That wouldn't be a good idea," the woman remarked. "He and my husband don't get along." % As the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive; no laconism can reach it: 'tis the short hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room. -Jeremy Collier % 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 sword of the best-tempered metal is the most flexible; so the truly generous are most pliant and courteous in their behavior to their inferiors. -Fuller % As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces- faster, smaller, more complete, or computatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. -Frederick Brooks Jr. % As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % As to Jesus of Nazareth, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. -Benjamin Franklin % As to the idea that advertising motivates people, remember the Edsel. % As with liberty, the price of leanness is eternal vigilance. -Gene Brown % As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" % As you are old and reverend, you should be wise. -Shakespeare % As you are, so shall you wish. As you wish, so shall it be. % As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the spider is suing you for damages. % Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if one went to Harvard). -Edgar R. Fiedler % 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. % Ass: The masculine of "lass". % Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. % Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke. -Stanley Walker % Assuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles -Pat Paulsen % Astrology Law: It's always the wrong time of the month. -Rozanne Weissman % 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 a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty. % At a bargain sale, the only suit or dress that you like best and that fits is the one not on sale. % 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, a society contains a certain amount of accumulated and accruing aggressiveness. If more than twenty-one years elapse without this aggressiveness being directed outward, in a popular war against other countries, it turns inward, in social unrest, civil disturbances, and political disruption. -Professor Charles P. Issawi % At any one time, thousands of borough councilmen, school board members, attorneys, and businessmen, as well as congressmen, senators, and governors, are all dreaming of the White House, but few, if any of them, will make it. -Mark B. Cohen % At any public relations luncheon, the quality of the food is inversely related to the quality of the information. -Earl Ubell % At every trifle scorn to take offense, That always shews great pride or little sense. -Alexander Pope % At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -G. L. Glegg, The Design of Design % At five minutes before the hour, a student will ask a question requiring a ten minute answer. -M. M. Johnston % At least you're an EXPERIENCED incompetent. % At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. -Marshall Lumsden % At recent trade talks the American representative offered to sell sophisticated American telephone technology to the soviets. American : "And in the United States, anyone can pick up any phone and dial 9-1-1. This will record the call and connect them with the police." Soviet : "In the Soviet Union we don't require that you dial anything." From the New York Times, 11/7/89: % At some point, every faculty would certainly lynch its dean, if it could only agree on a date. % At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out. -Richard H. Brien % 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. -Tom Gibb % At the store yesterday, I came upon a giant glass jar of maraschino cherries that had broken on the floor. As the clerk appeared with a mop, I said, "Looks like the end of a month of sundaes." % At the working-man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter! nor will the bailiff or the constable enter; for industry pays debts, but despair increaseth them. -Benjamin Franklin % At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment. -Grattan % Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man. -Francis Bacon % Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property. -Jeremy Collier % Atheist's Manifesto: "Kill 'em all, and let nobody sort 'em out." % Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth. -Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry % Atlanta had a couple inches of snow on the ground for the federal holiday on January 20. Now, snow is a wonderful thing for holidays like Christmas, but there's just something not right about a white MLK's Birthday. % 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 % Atoms are made up of electrons and protons (protons are also nothing). Fifty billion electrons placed side by side in a straight line would stretch across the period at the end of this sentence. Protons are heavier but take up less space. Such an idea is incapable of being absorbed by the human mind. -John Lardner and Thomas Sugrue % Attendants at a service station in Eunice, Louisiana, handed more than $100 to a naked man who claimed to have a gun in his pocket. % Attention to detail is the watchword for gleaning information from an unsuspecting witness. -Inspector Cleuseau % Auditors always reject expense accounts with a bottom line divisible by five. % Auditors are the people who go in after the war is lost and bayonet the wounded. % Authoritarian socialism has failed almost everywhere, but you will find not a single Marxist who will say it has failed because it was wrong or impractical. He will say is has failed because nobody went far enough with it. So failure never proves that a myth is wrong. -Jean-Francois Revel % Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates. The fumes of it invade the brain, And make men giddy, proud and vain; By this the fool commands the wise The noble with the base complies. The sot assumes the rule of wit, And cowards make the base submit. -Butler % Authority tends to assign jobs to those least able to do them. -Richard C. Cornuelle % Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb. -Stanley Kaufman % Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that one over again, too. Who decides? -Lazarus Long % Automobile: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. % Availability of manuscripts in a given subject area is inversely proportional to the need for books in that area. % Avarice is always poor, but poor by her own fault. -Johnson % Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance. % Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % Avoid fried foods which angry up the blood. -Satchel Paige % Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry (nota bene: Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!) -Lazarus Long % Avoid reality at all costs. % Avoid running at all times. -Satchel Paige % Avoid strong drink. It makes you shoot at IRS agents- and miss. -Lazarus Long % B: Well, I'll tell you. I just got myself a paramour. A: A paramour??? At your age??? B: Sure. Why not at my age? A: Well, what did your wife say? B: My wife? Why should she care how I cut the grass? % BASIC is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. % BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'. % BASIC: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. % BLISS is ignorance. % Baby's heads have no hair, Old men's heads are just as bare; Between the cradle and the grave, Lies a haircut and a shave. % Bacchus: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Back to a simpler time of skins and stones! When things go wrong, the answer's in the stars, or evil spells, or reading chicken bones, or sacrifices to all gods but Mars. -Jack Kirwan % Back when I was attending the University of Utah, The Daily Utah Chronicle ran a joke ad for a debate between Phil Donahue and Whiskers the Lamb. Over 30 people showed up. (what they were expecting, God only knows.) % Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first or second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood. -St. Augustine % Bad day to drive off a cliff. % Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed. -Dalin B. Oaks % Bad money drives out good. -Sir Thomas Gresham % Bad news does not improve with age. -Jody Powell % Bad news drives good news out of the media. -Lee Loevinger % Bad news travels fast. % Bagbiter: 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING. % 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. % Baker's Law of Economics: You do not want the one you can afford. % Bald, n: hairing impaired % Baltimore: Where the women wear turtleneck sweaters to hide their flea collars. % Bambification: The mental conversion of flesh and blood living creatures into cartoon characters possessing borgeois Judeo-Christian attitudes and morals. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. % Bands that Belong Together Beach Boys and UB40 Fine Young Cannibals and Missing Persons Guess Who and Who Kansas and Toto Madonna and Super Tramp Milli Vanilli and The Pretenders Styx and Stones % Banish Evil from the world? Nonsense! Encourage it, foster it, sponsor it. The world owes Evil a debt beyond imagination. Think! Without greed ambition falters. Without vanity art becomes idle musing. Without cruelty benevolence lapses to passivity. Superstition has shamed man into self-reliance and, without stupidity, where would be the savor of superior understanding? -Magnus Ridolf % Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. % Bankers do it with interest (penalty for early withdrawal). % 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. -Al Ross % Barometer: 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 % Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2) Advising the President. 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin. -David Letterman % Bat1: "Hey! Did you hear there's a guano shortage? Bat2: "No shit?" % Be Yourself. Who else is better qualified? -Frank J. Giblin II % Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. % Be a defensive driver. Buy a Tiger M31. % Be alert! America needs more lerts. % Be always displeased with what thou art, if your desirest to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest. But if thou have enough thou perisheth. Always add, always walk, always proceed. Neither stand still, nor go back, nor deviate. -St. Augustine % 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, "Deteriorada" % Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. % Be calm in arguing, for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy. % Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -Mark Twain % Be careful who you step on on the way up; you never know who you'll pass on the way down. % Be concise in your writing and talking, especially when giving instructions to others. % Be courteous. Have genuine consideration for other people's feelings, wishes and situations. % Be different: conform. % Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. % Be generous. Remember that it is the productivity of others that makes possible your executive position. % Be happy. It is a way of being wise. % Be just and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy God's, and truth's. -Shakespeare % Be like a duck: Keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil under water. % Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it; nor at any time in the extremities of it. -Lavater % Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and consequently should not be any part of your concern. -Epictetus % Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. -Alexander Pope % Be self-reliant and your success is assured. Unless you're incompetent. % Be sober and temperate, and you will be happy. -Benjamin Franklin % Be sure to save your money; you never know when it might be worth something again. % Be suspicious of anything that works perfectly. It's probably because two errors are canceling each other out. -Dave Bartley % Be tactful; overlook not your own opportunity. % Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. -Shakespeare % Be tolerant of those who disagree with you, after all, they have a right to their ridiculous opinions. % Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by false appreciation of their own strength. -Charles C. Colton % Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. -Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % Be ye angry and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath. -Ephesians 4:26 % Beam me up Scottie; there's no intelligent life down here! % Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life. % Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but if it light well, it makes virtue shine and vice blush. -Francis Bacon % Beauty seldom recommends one woman to another. % Beauty without virtue is like a flower without perfume. % Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile. -Campbell % Because men believe not in Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and hoard. They do not believe in any reward for charity, therefore they will part with nothing. -Barrow % Bedfellows make strange politicians. % 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. % Beethoven had a noted career. % Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego. % Before a party or a trip, if it can, it will let rip. % Before you have sex you have to be elected to a high government position. -Zippy % Begathon: A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money. -Rich Hall, Sniglets % Behind every argument is someone's ignorance. % Behind every great man is a great computer. % Behind every great man is a great woman. Behind every great woman is a great behind. % Behind every great man there is a surprised woman. -Maryon Pearson % Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. -James 3:5 % Behold the unborn fetus and Weep salt tears crocodilian; All life is sacred (save, of course, An enemy civilian). % Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. % Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry ve-ry an-gry! % Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin when you get what you want. -Irving Kristol % Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance... -Lazarus Long % Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important. -Eugene McCarthy % Being schizophrenic is better than living alone. % Believe not much them that seem to despise riches; for they despise them that despair of them; and none are worse when they come to them. Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and sometimes they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more. -Francis Bacon % Bell Labs Unix - Reach out and grep someone. % Benchley's travel distinction: In America there are two classes of travel: first class and with children. % 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. % Benny Hill: the master of the single entendre. % Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence. -Time Bandits % Besides the device, the box should contain: - Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING" - A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns. YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable. IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why." WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. -Dave Barry, "Read This First!" % Best men are often moulded out of faults. -Shakespeare % Best trust the happy moments... the days that make us happy make us wise. -John Masefield % Beste's Principle: The more the name of the product promises, the less it delivers. % Bets at the first were fool-traps where the wise Like spiders lay in ambush for the flies. -Dryden % Better be alone than in bad company. % Better bend than break. % Better dead than mellow. % Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. -Edmund Burke % Better to die a thousand deaths than wound my honor. -Addison % Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a lamb. % Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. % Better to throw it out-than throw it in. -Skinny Mitchell % Better to use medicines at the outset than at the last moment. % Between grief and nothing I will take grief. -William Faulkner % Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -Leonard Brandwein % Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. % Beware of a tall dark man with a spoon up his nose. % Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. -Henry David Thoreau % Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. % 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 desperate steps!- the darkest day Live till to-morrow, will have passed away. -Cowper % Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear it that the opposer may beware of thee. -Shakespeare % Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. -Benjamin Franklin % Beware of low-flying butterflies. % Beware of people who fall at your feet. They may be reaching for the corner of the rug. % Beware of quantum ducks: Quark, Quark. % 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. % Beware the [lobbyist], my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch (with thanks to Lewis Carol). No matter how noble the cause or well meaning its professional advocates, lobbyists are still paid to get results. They're subject to errors in judgment, shortcomings in motives, and most of them don't even vote in your district. -Pierre S. du Pont % Beware the fury of a patient man. -Dryden % Beware the granfalloon. % Beware the man who makes cream with his mouth; he winds up making butter with his nose. -Babbaluche the cobbler % Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine. -George Santayana % Big people are those who make us feel bigger when we are with them. % Bigotry is hard to remove from a person. It wasn't reasoned in and it can't be reasoned out. % Binary: Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. % Biochemistry expands so as to fill the space and time available for its completion and publication. -R. T. Hersh % Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing as division. % Bipolar: Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York. % Birth: The first and direst of all disasters. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bismark's Law: The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night. % Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. % Black Dens: Where Black Holes live; often unheated warehouses with Day'Glo spray painting, mutilated mannequins, Elvis references, dozens of overflowing ashtrays, broken mirror sculptures, and Velvet Underground music playing in the background. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Black Holes: An X Generation subgroup best known for their possession of almost entirely black wardrobes. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Black holes are where God is dividing by zero. % Bleeding Ponytail: An elderly sold-out baby boomer who pines for hippie or pre-sellout days. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Blessed are the meek for they shall inhibit the earth. % Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called the children of God. -Matthew 5:9 % Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. % Blessed be those who initiate lively discussions with the hopelessly mute for they shall be known as dentists. % Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. -Poor Richard % Blessed is he who has reached the point of no return and knows it, for he shall enjoy living. -W. C. Bennett % 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. % Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept throwing up on them. % Boat: A hole in the water, surrounded by wood, into which one throws money. % 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. % Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. % Books by Oolon Caluphid: Where God Went Wrong Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes Who Is the God Person Anyway? ...and the finale: Well, That About Wraps It Up For God % Boomer Envy: Envy of material wealth and longe-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Booze is the answer. I don't remember the question. % Bordeaux makes you think of mischief; Burgundy makes you tease; Champagne makes you. % Bore: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Borkon's Observation: The farther a theater seat is from the aisle, the later the patron arives. % Boss to employer: No, Baxter, you're not being replaced by a computer- only a silicon chip. -Eli Stein % Boss: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words boss and botch were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning a supervisor of workers also meant an ornamental stud. % 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: Ludwig von Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition. % Boswell's Rule: Nothing gives a used car more miles per gallon than a salesman. % Bow to no patron's insolence. Rely on no frail hopes; in freedom live and die. -Seneca % Boy: A noise with dirt on it. % 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?" % Bradyism: A multisibling sensibility derived from having grown up in large families. A rarity in those born after approximately 1965, symptoms of Bradyism include a facility for mind games, emotional withdrawal in situations of overcrowding, and a deeply felt need for a well-defined personal space. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Brain fried -- Core dumped % 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" % Brain: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Brave spirits are a balsam to themselves; there is a nobleness of mind that heals wounds beyond salves. -Cartwright % Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid. -Franklin P. Jones % Brazilification: The widening gulf between the rich and poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Bread and Circuits: The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny - no longer relevant or meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, and in many cases dangerous. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Breakthrough: We finally figured out a way to sell it! % 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 % Brevity and superficiality are often concomitants. -Amrom Katz % Bride: 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. % British Israelites: The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth. -Mike Harding, The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac % Broad-mindedness: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. % Brontosaurus Principle: Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when this occurs, they are an endangered species. -Thomas K. Connellan % Brooks Atkinson described a Shubert play as "beautiful, if you are deaf and dumb." % Bruce Sterling, on computers replacing drugs as a medium for altering consciousness and creating artificial realities: "In a way, staring into a computer screen is like staring into an eclipse. It's brilliant and you don't realize the damage until its too late." % Bubble Memory: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube". % Bug: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options or sex when s/he wrote the program. % Bugs, pl. n.: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. % Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. -Christopher J. Shaw % Bullwinkle: You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit. General: What does that make YOU? Bullwinkle: What else? An executive... -Jay Ward % Bureaucrat: A politician who has tenure. % Bureaucratic Cop-Out Number 1: You should have seen it when I got it! -Marshall L. Smith % Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise. % Burn's Hog Weighing Method: 1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. 2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. 3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. 4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. -Robert Burns % Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. -Ken Weaver % Bus schedules are arranged so your bus will arrive at the transfer point precisely one minute after the connecting bus has left. -John Corcoran % Bush Lite: Less Capital gains, More Domestic Policy. % Bush and Gorbachev decided to get themselves frozen for a hundred years to see how the current political situation resolved itself. After the time was up they were thawed, and started to read newspapers to catch up on the situation. Gorbachev started to laugh. In response to Bush's question he said, "I see that the dollar is still getting weaker." Then Bush started to laugh. In response to Gorbachev's question of why, he said, "I read that there is renewed fighting on the German-Chinese border." % Business is like oil, it won't mix with anything but business. % But I don't like Spam!!!! % But I have seen the science I worshiped and the airplane I loved destroying the civilization I expected them to serve. -Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. % But a machine that was powerful enough to accelerate particles to the grand unification energy would have to be as big as the Solar System - and would be unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate. -Stephen Hawking % But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave. -Wordsworth % But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations paws. % But if a man happens to find himself ... he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life. % But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense - the debate about angels on pinheads - makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. -S. J. Gould, Wide Hats and Narrow Minds % But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers % But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit. -Shakespeare % But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast to the nearest gas station. % But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. -Hilaire Belloc % 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 the chances are that you will get nowhere with your spy scare. You have to have a bigger territory to work in. That's one of the advantages of being a government instead of just a private liar. -Robert Benchley % But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. -Dave Barry, What is Electricity? % But then her face, So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, the overflowings of an innocent heart. -Rogers % But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes? % But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers? % By a careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave- the motives, the desires, the wishes... we increase the feeling of freedom. -B. F. Skinner % By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. -George Mason % By definition, when you are investigating the unknown, you do not know what you will find. % By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. -Ashleigh Brilliant % By establishing real money, men rule out its debasement. -Lewis E. Lehrman % By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. % By following the good, you learn to be good. Unfortunately bad is more fun. % By gnawing through a dike even a rat may drown a nation. -Edward Burke % By heaven we understand a state of happiness infinite in degree, and endless in duration. -Benjamin Franklin % By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. -Ralph Waldo Emerson Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, actually, stealing IS easier.) to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?" % By night an atheist half believes a God. -Edward Young % By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared abruptly. -Newsweek % By persevering over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination. -Christopher Columbus % By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. -Shakespeare % By the time a person gets to greener pastures, he can't climb the fence. % By the time a social science theory is formulated in such a way that it can be tested, changing circumstances have already made it obsolete. -Professor Charles P. Issawi % By the year 1984 the entire world may be run by computers. Digital Equipment Corporation will still be run by people. % By work you get money, by talk you get knowledge. -Jaliburton % 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 A are so keen to get *there*. 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 % C is a programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -Ray Simard % C provides the infinitely-abusable GOTO statement, and labels to branch to. Formally, the GOTO is never necessary, and in practice it is almost always easy to write code without it. -Kernighan & Ritchie, The C Programming Language % CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people. % CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees. % CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. % CELIBACY(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual CELIBACY(1) NAME celibacy - don't have sex SYNOPSIS celibacy DESCRIPTION Does nothing worth mentioning. % COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance. % CQ What?... Please type whatever the hell it was you where trying to type again! % Cabbage: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Cafe Minimalism: To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting into practice any of its tenets. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % California is a fine place to live - if you happen to be an orange. -Fred Allen % 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 % Call him Wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear Because to a clear Why. -Lavater % 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. % Calmness is great advantage; he that lets another chafe may warm him at his fire, mark all his wand'rings and enjoy his frets, as cunning fencers suffer heat to tire. -Herbert % 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 % Cameras are so simple to operate now that taking pictures is much easier than getting friends to look at them. -Hugh Allen % Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points. -M. M. Johnston % Can a blue man sing the whites? % Can there be a republic that does not slump under the weight of so much human desire? -Michael Scully % Can you program? Well, I'm literate, if that's what you mean! % 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 % Canada's climate is nine months winter and three months late in fall. % Canadian prison inmate Robert Walters, halfway through a 24-year sentence for robbery, was allowed out of Collins Bay penitentiary for six hours on a "resocializing program" on the condition that his guard keep him in sight at all times. After the two got drunk at a bar, Walters excused himself and popped across the street to rob a bank. % Cancel me not - for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. -Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad % Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. -Ogden Nash % Cannibalism suits you. % Canoeing Postulate: No matter which direction you start, it's always against the wind coming back. % Canonical: The usual or standard state or manner of something. % Capital Punishment: The income tax. % Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. -Mohandas Gandhi % Capitalism can exist in one of only two states: welfare or warfare. -Bill Gray % Capitalism did not arise because capitalists stole the land, but because it was more efficient than feudalism. It will perish because it is not merely less efficient than socialism, but actually self-destructive. -J. B. S. Haldane % Capitalism in the United States has undergone profound modification, not just under the New Deal, but through a consensus that continued to grow after the New Deal. Government in the U. S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country. -Norman Cousins % Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. % Capitalism is outrageously unjust; it requires a continuing maldistribution of wealth in order to exist. We live in the twilight of an epoch. I am absolutely convinced that we are moving toward some kind of planned economy. -Michael Harrington % Captain Hook died of jock itch. % 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. % Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye. -Shakespeare % Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt; And ev'ry grin so merry, draws one out. -Dr. Wolcott % Careful planning is the key to safe and swift travel. -Odysseus % 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. % Carob works on the principle that, when mixed with the right combination of fats and sugar, it can duplicate chocolate in color and texture. Of course, the same can be said of dirt. % Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun): The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -Rich Hall, Sniglets % Cat: Lapwarmer with built-in vibrator. % Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. -Mark Twain % Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. % Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. % Celebrity Shadenfreude: Lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Celibacy is not hereditary. -Guy Godin % Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? % Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Certain things shouldn't be moved. -Murray Teigh Bloom % Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. -Lazarus Long % 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 % Champagne is the only wine a woman can drink and still remain beautiful. -Mme. de Pompadour % Changing things is central to leadership, and changing them before anyone else is creativeness. -Antony Jay % Character Density: The number of very weird people in the office. % Character is a perfectly educated will. -Novalis % Character is destiny. -Heraclitus % Charity begins at home. % Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. -I Corinthians % Charity: a thing that begins at home and usually stays there. % Chaste makes waste. % Cheap things are of no value, valuable things are not cheap. % Check the answer you have worked out once more before you tell it to anybody. -Edmund C. Berkeley % Checkuary: 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: Any cook who swears in French. % Chemicals: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. % Cheop's law: TABNothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. % Chicago Tribune headline: THE FAME OF PLAINS IS MAINLY ON THE WANE. % Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. % Chicago: Where the dead still vote ... early and often! % Chicken Little was right.!!##$##!!!!! % Chicken Soup: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -Arthur Naiman, Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish % Chide a friend in private and praise him in public. -Solon % 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 begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. -Oscar Wilde % Children have more energy after a hard day of play than they do after a good night's sleep. -Dr. R. F. Gumperson % Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. % Chill penury weighs down the heart, itself; and though it sometimes be endured with calmness, it is but the calmness of despair. -Mrs. Jameson % 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. % Choose such pleasures as recreate much, and cost little. -Fuller % Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it; that is the right and true pride. -Lord Chesterfield % Christ believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. -Bertrand Russell % Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. % Cicero's style bores me. When I have spent an hour reading him and try to recollect what I have extracted, I usually find it nothing but wind. -Michel de Montaigne % Cigarette: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. % Cinemuck: The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which covers the floors of movie theaters. -Rich Hall, Sniglets % Circular Definition: see Circular Definition. % Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become competent, at least in a specialized field. -Frank R. Freemon % Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. % Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor. -Toynbee % Classified material is considered lost when it cannot be found. % Cleanliness is next to impossible. % Clearly stated instructions will consistently produce multiple interpretations. -Charles P. Boyle % Cleveland still lives. God must be dead. % Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day. % Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. % Clique Maintenance: The need of one generation to see the generaton following it as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain." -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. % Close friends will surprise you tonight with the absence of a party. % Closing lines: I'm going to make like a tree and leave. I'm going to put an egg in my shoe and beat it. I'm going to make like the shepherds and get the flock out of here. % Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -Mark Twain % 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" % Coito ergo sum % Cold: When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. % Cold: When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets. % Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. % Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage. % Collaboration: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. % Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. % College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -H. L. Mencken % College is like a woman -- you work so hard to get in, and nine months later you wish you'd never come. % College isn't the place to go for ideas. -Hellen Keller % College or post-high school training desirable. % Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. % Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure. -Thorndike % Colson's Law: If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. % Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. Grelb's Commentary: Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. % Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. -Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad % Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to n, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! -Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad % Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have. % Comitas comitatum, omnia comitas. -Professor Charles P. Issawi % Command: 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. % Commend a fool for his wit, or a knave for his honesty, and they will receive you into their bosom. -Fielding % Comment Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. -Dorothy Parker % Commitment: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed. % Committee Rules: 1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner. 2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise. 3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others. 4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. 5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for. -Harry Chapman % Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits, facilities, computers, employee parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial support, etc., always call for dramatic expenditure increases. -Thomas L. Martin % Committee: a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. -Fred Allen % Committee: a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours. -Milton Berle % Committee: a group of the unfit, appointed by the unwilling, to do the unnecessary. -Stewart Harrol % Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work. % Common and vulgar people ascribe all ill that they feel to others; people of little wisdom ascribe to themselves; people of much wisdom, to no one. -Epictetus % Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge % Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. -George Bernard Shaw % Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -Albert Einstein % Common sense is very uncommon. % Commonly, physicians, like beer, are best when they are old, and lawyers, like bread, when they are young and new. -Fuller % Communists do it without class. % Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. -William James % Compared with everything else in data processing, paper is cheap; use it. But the value of a report decreases as the number of its pages increases. % Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. -St. Augustine % Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment. -John Dewey % Completion of any task within the allocated time and budget does not bring credit upon the performing personnel- it merely proves the task was easier than expected. Failure to complete any task within the allocated time and budget proves the task was more difficult than expected and requires promotion for those in charge. % Compliments of congratulations are always kindly taken, and cost nothing but pen, ink, and paper. I consider them as droughts upon good breeding, where the exchange is always greatly in favor of the drawer. -Chesterfield % Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. % Computer Science is not about computers, any more than Astronomy is about telescopes. -Edgar Dijkstra % Computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price gain in 30 years. -Fred Brooks, Jr. % Computer lanuages with strong typing are for people with weak memories. % Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives? -Alan Kay, Scientific American % Computer programmers do it byte by byte % Computer-based management information systems will cure most review and control problems. -Richard F. Moore % Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. % Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up. % Computers can give you the mnemonic plague. % Computers can make more mistakes in one minute than 100 experts in one year. % Computers never make mistrakes. % Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more than the estimate the job will cost. % Computing power increases as the square of the cost. If you want to do it twice as cheaply, you have to do it four times as slowly. -Herb Grosch % Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -LaRouchefoucauld % Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. -Shakespeare % Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve. -Pope % Concept: Any idea for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000. % Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. -Frederick Brooks Jr. % Concerning attributions: Even if we DID quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish. -Thom Mcleod % Concerning the gods, I am not able to know to a certainty whether they exist or not. For there are many things which prevent one from knowing, especially the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of the life of man. % Condense soup, not books! % Condoms are like listening to a symphony with cotton in your ears. % 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. % Confound these ancestors... They've stolen our best ideas! -Ben Jonson % Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for more assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance. -H. H. Munro % Confucious say too much. -recent Chinese saying % Confusion (entropy) is always increasing in society. Only if someone or something works extremely hard can this confusion be reduced to order in a limited region. Nevertheless, this effort will still result in an increase in the total confusion of society at large. -Dr. W. L. Everett % Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. % Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON FAST FORWARD, THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? -Dave Barry, Read This First! % Connector Conspiracy, n: [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. % Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics. -Sheridon % 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. % Consensus Terrorism: The process that decides in-office attitudes and behaviour. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Conserve energy -- make love more slowly. % Consider the Malevolent Universe Theory: it really IS out to get you! % Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. -Josh Billings % Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability. -Horace % Consistency is the product of small minds. -Merle P. Martin % Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. -Bernard Berenson % Conspicuous Minimalism: A life-style tactic similar to Status Substitution. The nonownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and intellectual superiority. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. % Consultation: Medical term meaning "to share the wealth." % Contact with a friend may provide some unexpected income advantages. % Contentment produces in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing, by banishing the desire of them. If it cannot remove the disquietudes arising from a man's mind, body, or fortune, it makes him easy under them. -Addison % 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 enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius. % Conversation: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. % Conversational Slumming: The self-conscious enjoyment of a given conversation precisely for its lack of intellectual rigor. A major spin-off of Recreational Slumming. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Corollary to Murphy's Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. % Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % 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 % Corrupt: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. % 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 % Cost consciousness and sophisticated design are basically incompatible. -Richard F. Moore % Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man. -Shakespeare % Count the day won when, turning on its axis, This earth imposes no additional taxes. % Couples without children always know just how you should raise yours. % Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it. -Richter % Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that is always respected, even when it is associated with vice. -Samuel Johnson % Courage is grace under pressure. -Ernest Hemingway % Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.) -Lazarus Long % Courage is walking naked through a cannibal village. -Leonard Louis Levinson % Courage is your greatest present need. % Courses of action which run only to be justified in terms of practicality ultimately prove destructive and impractical. -Mark B. Cohen % Courtship consists of a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood. -Sterne % Covert Conversation Code: If you don't want your children to hear what you are sayin, pretend you're talking to them. % Coward: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Coward: A man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts normally. -Sultana Zoraya % Cows may come and cows may go, but the bull in this place goes on FOREVER!!! % Crab apples may not be the best kind of fruit; but a tree which every year bears a great crop of crab apples is better worth cultivating than a tree which bears nothing. % 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 % Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! % Creative intelligence in its various forms and activities is what makes man. -James Harvey Robinson % Creative people all come in and want their stuff printed on gold leaf. -Jim Shooter % Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the broth. -Bernice Fitz-Gibbon % Creditors have better memories than debtors; and creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times. -Benjamin Franklin % Crime does not pay... as well as politics. -A. E. Newman % Crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it! % Critic: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meager, muddy vapid, and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous and sparkling, they improve the taste, expand the heart, and are worthy of being introduced at the symposium of the gods. -Colton % Critics are a kind of freebooters in the republic of letters, who, like deer, goats, and divers other gramniverous animals, gain subsistence by gorging upon buds and leaves of the young shrubs of the forest, thereby robbing them of their verdue, and retarding their progress to maturity. -Washington Irving % Croll's Query: If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of? % Cryptotechnophobia: The secret belief that technology is more of a menace than a boon. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Cult of Aloneness: The need for autonomy at all costs, usually at the expense of long'term relationships. Often brought about by overly high expectations of others. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body. -Cicero % Cunning and deceit will every time serve a man better than force. -Niccolo Machiavelli % Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity. -La Rochefoucauld % Curiosity in the humanities is a free person's humility, and a humble person's freedom. -Joseph Duffy % Curley's Law: As long as they spell the name right. % Cursed is every-one who places his hope in man. -St. Augustine % Custom does often reason overrule and only serves for reason to the fool. -John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester % Custom is the law of fools. -Vanburgh % Custom will often blind one to the good as well as to the evil effects of any long established system. -Bishop Richard Whately % Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. "Justice" is a search for workable customs. -Dr. Margaret Mader % Cut 'em off at the past! % 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: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Cynic: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. % Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. -Lillian Hellman % Cynicism is disillusioned idealism. -Harry Kemelman % Cynicism is humor in ill-health. -H. G. Wells % Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence. -Russell Lynes % Cynics are right nine times out of ten; what undoes them is their belief that they are right ten times out of ten. -Professor Charles P. Issawi % DELETE A FORTUNE! Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it gets expunged. % Dad, what's that building? That's an ancient Norman watchtower... where they would watch for Norman! They haven't spotted him yet... -actual conversation between my Dad & me % Damnable, both sides rogue. -Shakespeare % Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. % David Merrick, displaying his sneaky knack for extending the life of a production beyond the reasonable expectations of the playwright's mother. -Walter Kerr % David Stone's law: One man's 'Simple' is another man's 'Huh ?' % Dawn: The time when men of reason go to bed. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. % DeVries's Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. % Dead? No excuse for laying off work. % Deadlock's Law: If the lawmakers make a compromise, the place where it will be felt the most is the taxpayer's pocket. % Dear God, make me a good boy, but it's all right with me if you'd like to take your time about it. % Dear Lord: I just want ONE one-armed manager so I never have to hear, "On the other hand," again. % Dear Miss Manners: My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between courses, is all right. Which is correct? Gentle Reader: For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. % Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face. Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face ... % Death and taxes are inevitable; at least death doesn't get worse every year. % Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold. -George Fabricius % Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. % Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. % Death is a comingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time. -Goethe % Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -R. Geis % Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. -Norman Cousins % Death is only a state of mind. Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else. % Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it; it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand. -Sterne % Death to all fanatics! % Death tugs at my ear and says: "Live, I am coming." -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. % Death: The penultimate commercial transaction finalized by probate. -Bernard Rosenberg % Death: to stop computing suddenly. % Death: to stop sinning suddenly. % Decade Blending: In clothing: the indiscriminate combination of two or more items from varios decades to create a personal mood: Sheila = Mary Quant earrings (1960s) + cork wedgie platform shoes (1970s) + black leather jacket (1950s and 1980s). -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Deceit in the conduct of war outweighs valor and is worthy of merit. -Niccolo Machiavelli % Deception Experiment: An experiment in which the researcher is pleased to believe that the true nature of the situation is unknown to the participants. Typically the only parties deceived are the funding agency and the journal editor. % Decide what you want to be- pay the price and be what you want to be. -John A. Widstoe % Deciding whom you marry is the most important decision you'll ever make. % Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight; indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it. -Gordon Graham % Decision maker: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped. % Decision of character is one of the most important of human qualities, philosophically considered. Speculation, knowledge, is not the chief end of man; it is action. -Burnap % Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. % Deck Us All With Boston Charlie Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! Nora's freezin' on the trolley, Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! Don't we know archaic barrel, Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. Trolley Molly don't love Harold, Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! -Walt Kelly % Deep in the nature of all these noble races there lurks unmistakably the beast of prey, the blond beast, lustfully roving in search of booty and victory. -Nietzsche % Deep is a word like theory or semantic - it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say I've got a theory, quite another to say I've got a semantic theory, but, ah, those who can claim I've got a deep semantic theory, they are truly blessed. -Randy Davis % Default is more revolutionary than ideals. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Defeated, but not dismayed- crushed to the earth, but not humiliated- he seemed to grow more haughty beneath disaster, and to experience a fierce satisfaction in draining the last dregs of bitterness. -Washington Irving % Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise. -Congreve % Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. -Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD % Deliberation: 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. % Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth. -Lazarus Long % Democracy can learn some things from Communism: for example, when a Communist politician is through, he is through. % 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. -George Bernard 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. -Jawaharial Nehru % Democracy is not a matter of sentiment, but of foresight. Any system that doesn't take the long run into account will burn itself out in the short run. -Charles Yost % Democracy is that form of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves. -James Dale Davidson % Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. -E. B. White % Democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others. -Winston Churchill % Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated. -G. K. Chesterton % Democrats buy most of the books that have been banned somewhere. Republicans form censorship committees and read them as a group. % Democrats eat the fish they catch. Republicans hang them on the wall. % Democrats give their worn-out clothes to those less fortunate. Republicans wear theirs. % Democrats keep trying to cut down on their smoking but are not successful. Neither are Republicans. % Democrats make up plans and then do something else. Republicans follow the plans their grandfathers made. % Democrats name their children after currently popular sports figures, politicians, and entertainers. Republican children are named after their parents or grandparents, depending on where the money is. % Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls. % Dentist: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Department meeting in 3 minutes. % Depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously towards himself will act so towards others, and vice versa. -Lavater % Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. % Derision Preemption: A life-style tactic; the refusal to go out on any sort of emotional limb so as to avoid mockery from peers. Derision Preemption is the main goal of Knee-Jerk Irony. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Despise not any man, and do not spurn any thing. For there is no man that hath not his hour, no is there any thing that hath not its place. -Rabbi Ben Azai % Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and, therefore, they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, the Heloetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear that generates true courage. -Burke % Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop: Drive Sideways. % Detroit made a grand try at persuading the visiting Republicans that the city is not as crime-ridden as people think. The campaign was going fine until somebody stole the governor's Lincoln Mark IV limousine. -National Review % Devyver's law: Given a sufficient number of people and an adequate amount of time, you can create insurmountable opposition to the most inconsequential idea. % Diagnostic: software which runs to completion no matter how broken the hardware is. % Dialogue: opposing factions discussing relevant issues. Formerly called an argument. -Paul Sweeney % Did love make the world go round when it was flat? % Did the Devil really create the world when God wasn't looking? % Did you ever feel like the whole world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of white socks? % Did you ever hear Of the frolic fairies dear? They're a blessed little race, Peeping up in fancy's face, In the valley, on the hill, By the fountain and the rill; Laughing out between the leaves That the loving summer weaves. -Mrs. Osgood % Did you hear about the that went to the airport? Saw a sign that said 'Airport Left', so he turned around and went home. % Did you hear about the Len Bias Memorial Basketball League? It's for guys six feet and under. % Did you hear about the cowboy who got himself a dachshund? Everyone kept telling him to get a long, little doggie. % Did you hear about the earthquake committee meeting that was adjourned by a motion from the floor? % Did you hear about the midget who was running away from the Prague Police? He ran up to a house, knocked on the door and asked the woman who opened the door if she would cache a small Czech. % Did you hear about the new Mike Tyson commercial? "In 6 years I'm going to Disneyworld!" % Did you hear about the new building demolition company? They call themselves "Ediface Wrecks". % Did you hear about the new resturant on the moon? Nice setting, but not a lot of atmosphere. % Did you hear about the shepherd who drove his sheep through town and was given a ticket for making a ewe turn? % Did you hear about the snail that was mugged by two tortoises? When he went down to report the mugging the police officer asked him if he could describe the event and the snail replied, "I don't know if I could, it happened so fast." % Did you hear that Sinead O'Connor is coming out with a new shampoo? It's a roll-on. % Did you hear that Woody Allen's girlfriend is pregnant with his next girlfriend? % Did you hear that the Dutch government gave Quayle 12 rare Rembrandt etchings? He's already got four of them colored in. % Did you know that Spiro Agnew is an anagram of "Grow a Penis" % Did you know that clones never use mirrors? -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Did you know that married men live longer than single men? So, if you want to die a slow death, get married!!! -Dave Maynard % Did you know that noone ever reads these things? % Did your mother have any children that lived? % Die: 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 % Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. -Thomas Jefferson % Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. % Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves; and He loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. -Burke % Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build: They have very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing, and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states than computers do. -Fred Brooks, Jr. % Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. % Diner: Waiter! There's a footprint in my breakfast. Waiter: Well, I don't see what the problem is. You ordered an omelet and told me to step on it! % Diplomacy has rarely been able to gain at the conference table what cannot be gained or held on the battlefield. % Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggy!" till you can find a rock. % Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest thing in the nicest way. % Diplomacy: The art of letting someone else have your way. % Diplomacy: The art of fishing tranquilly in troubled waters. % Diplomacy: The art of jumping into troubled waters without making a splash. % Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country. % Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it ... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week. -Will Rogers % Direct sales only: manufacturer had argument with distributor % Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability. -Roy L. Smith % Discipline, like the bridle in the hand of a good rider, should exercise its influence without appearing to do so; should be ever active, both as a support and as a restraint, yet seem to lie easily in hand. It must always be ready to check or to pull up, as occasion may require; and only when the horse is a runaway should the action of the curb be perceptible. % Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers. % Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. % Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought. -Albert Szent-Gyorgi % Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. % Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. -Francis Bacon % Diseases for Kisses (Hyperkarma): A deeply rooted belief that punishment will somehow always be far greater than the crime: ozone holes for littering. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Disk space - the final frontier! % Diskson's Rule of 49: The comfort of turning 49 is the realization that you are now too old to die young. % Distinctive: A different color or shape than our competitors. % Distress: 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. % Divines and dying men may talk of Hell But in my heart her several torments dwell. -Shakespeare % Divorce Assumption: A form of Safety Net-ism, the belief that if a marriage doesn't work out, then there is no problem because partners can simply seek a divorce. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Do I dare disturb the universe? -T. S. Eliot % Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? % Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? % Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missile defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. -C. A. R. Hoare % Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you. -Stewart E. White % Do not believe in miracles - rely on them. % Do not clog intellect's sluices with knowledge of questionable uses. % Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. -Dandemis % Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Their tastes may differ. -George Bernard Shaw % Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. % Do not embark upon vast undertakings with half-vast ideas. % Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. -Dylan Thomas % Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. -Lazarus Long % Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. % Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. Violators will be prosecuted. (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) % Do not try to solve all life's problems at once - learn to dread each day as it comes. -Donald Kaul % Do not underestimate the power of the Force. % Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. % Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead. % Do not wish to be anything but what you are and try to be that perfectly. -St. Francis De Sales % Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. % Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. % Do whatever you want. You don't matter. % Do whatever your enemies don't want you to do. -Gary Novak % Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. -George Bernard Shaw % Do you know what prizes the communists are now offering for recruiting new party members? If you get one new member, you don't pay dues. Two new members, you can quit the party. And for three, you get a certificate saying you were never a member. % Do you know what the death rate around here is? One per person. % Do you know where your towel is? % Do you know why the new Michael Jackson album is called "Dangerous"? Because the record company execs couldn't spell "Androgynous". % Do you realize that you are responsible for making this organization a cost, rather than a profit, center? % 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! % Doctors take two aspirin and do it in the morning. % Doctors, dentists, and lawyers are only on time for appointments when you're not. -Rozanne Weissman % 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. % Documents should always be dated, listings should never be torn on the outside fold. Violation is indicative of someone's (programmer's or operator's) inability. % Does a man speak foolishly?-suffer him gladly, for you are wise. Does he speak erroneously?-stop such a man's mouth with sound words that cannot be gainsaid. Does he speak truly?-rejoice in the truth. -Oliver Cromwell % Does history record any case in which the majority was right? % Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? % Doing a good job is like wetting your pants in a dark suit... You get a warm feeling, but nobody notices. % Don't LOOK at anything in a physics lab. Don't TASTE anything in a chemistry lab. Don't SMELL anything in a biology lab. Don't TOUCH anything in a medical lab. Don't LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department. % Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. % Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut. -Daniel S. Greenberg % Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. They are easier to handle than dumb mistakes. % Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. % Don't be overly suspicious where it's not warranted. % Don't be so humble, you're not that great. -Golda Meir % Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. % Don't believe in miracles, expect them. % Don't bite the hand that has your allowance in it. -Lisa Toddler % Don't care if you're rich or not, as long as you can live comfortably and have everything you want. % Don't cook tonight - starve a rat tomorow! % Don't disturb the perimeter (meaning don't stir a mess unless you can be sure of the result). % Don't eat yellow snow. -Frank Zappa % Don't ever speak more clearly than you think... -Attributed to Neils Bohr % Don't feel insecure or inferior! Remember, you're ORGANIC!! You could win an argument with almost any rock! % Don't forget that "Mother In Law" is an anagram of "Woman Hitler." % Don't get even - get odd! % Don't get stuck in a closet - wear yourself out. % Don't get suckered in by the comments - they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -Dave Storer % Don't get yourself involved with persons or situations that can't bear inspection. % 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 my keys so hard, it hurts. % Don't keep a negative attitude, such as "I will not succeed, I will not succeed." Instead, keep a positive attitude: "I WILL fail. I WILL fail." % Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. % Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. % Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something. -Last words of Pancho Villa % Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. % Don't let the best you have done so far be the standard for the rest of you life. % Don't let the fact that you can't do all you want to do keep you from doing what you can do. % Don't let the little guy think for the big guy. % Don't let your karma run over your dogma. % Don't let your mind wander - it's too little to be let out alone. % Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. -Bo Diddley % Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. % Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. % Don't lose heart ... they might want to cut it out ... and they want to avoid a lengthy search. % Don't malign the bug-eyed monster- Oh, he kidnaps girls, it's true, But bear in mind that all he wants to do is what YOU'RE trying to do. % Don't mess with the crude, rude dude, when he's not in the mood. % Don't panic. % Don't permit yourself to get between a dog and a lamp-post. % Don't play President - you're not. The Constitution provides for only one President. Don't forget it and don't be seen by others as not understanding that fact. -Donald Rumsfeld % Don't praise the bread until it is baked. % Don't push me. I'm going 55. I've done 75; The fine was $49. % Don't put all your eggs in your pocket. -Celestine Clark % 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 send my boy to Harvard, the dying mother said. Don't send my boy to Harvard, I'd rather see him dead. % Don't speak ill of your predecessors (or successors) - you did not walk in their shoes. -Donald Rumsfeld % Don't start something you would be afraid to see finished. % Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding. % Don't store garlic near other victuals. -Lazarus Long % Don't sweat the petty things, pet the sweaty things. % Don't take life too seriously - you'll never get out if it alive. % Don't talk to me about a man's being able to talk sense; everyone can talk sense- can he talk nonsense? -William Pitt the Elder % 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 tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -James J. Ling % Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water. % Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if you expect to buy their natural gas. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % Don't try to have the last word. You might get it. % Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal. -Zaphod Beeblebrox, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy % 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 about who you step on on the way up if you don't ever plan on coming down. % Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it. % 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 worry, be happy :-) % Don't wrestle a pig in a mudhole. You both get all dirty, and the pig enjoys it. % Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? % Dooley's law: If something happens to you, it has previously happened to all your friends. % Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope. % Dorian Graying: The unwillingness to gracefully allow one's body to show signs of aging. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Time; for that's the stuff the Iranians have plenty of. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % Dost thou love life? Then waste not time, for time is the stuff that life is made of. -Benjamin Franklin % Double-Blind Experiment: 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. % Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. -Kahlil Gibran % Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire % Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. -Paul Tillich % Douglas' Software observation: Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. % Down with categeorical imperatives! % Down with categorical imperatives! % Down-Nesting: The tendency of parents to move to small, guest-room-free houses after children have moved away so as to avoid children aged 20 to 30 who boomeranged home. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Draft beer, not people % Draw your salary before spending it. % Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. % Dreading the climax of all human ills, The inflammation of his weekly bills. -Byron % Dream after dream ensures, and still they dream that they shall still succeed, and still are disappointed. -William Cowper % Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. -Henry David Thoreau % Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow. -Shakespeare % 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 be able to, but it IS fun trying. % Drink and be whole again beyond confusion. -Robert Frost % Drive defensively. Buy a tank. % Drive is more than motivation. It is self motivation. % Drug: A substance that, when injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper. % Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route! % Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution, or of a bad memory! of a constitution so treacherously good, that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting drunk, but forgets the pains of getting sober. -Colton % Ducharm'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 interest, tomorrow will be canceled. % Dumpster Clocking: The tendeny when looking at objects to guesstimate the amount of time they will take to eventually decompose: "Ski boots are the worst. Solid plastic. They'll be around till the sun goes supernova." -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost hit my wife." "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at mine, over there." % During a hard period in Soviet history, the government showed _The_Grapes_Of_ _Wrath_ to the citizens, in an effort to show how much worse the United States was. All the citizens saw was that even the poorest Americans owned cars. % During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. -James Madison % During an exam, the pocket calculator battery will fail. -M. M. Johnston % During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think. -Bernard M. Baruch % During the next two hours, the VAX will be going up and down several times, often with lin^&%& *&97leKJI*^&5 olih^ryuni&*OI5troiul g^&*%vg^&*%8os^I&*KUYfgi7G*&^ J Hb87t6e7t7656 7*^&%679. % 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/~{on % During the race we may eat your dust, But when you graduate, you'll work for us. -Reed College cheer % Dust breeds. % Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -W. Somerset Maughm % Dyslexics of the world, untie! % E Pluribus Unix % EMACS: Emacs Manuals Are Cryptic and Surreal. % EMACS: Eventually Munches All Computer Storage. % Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. -James Bryant Conant % Each morning puts a man on trial and each evening passes judgment. -Roy L. Smith % Each person has the right to take part in the management of public affairs in his country, provided he has prior experience, a will to succeed, a college degree, influential parents, good looks, a resume, two 3X4 snapshots, and a good tax record. -Carlos Eduardo Novaes % Each person has the right to take the subway. -Carlos Eduardo Novaes % Each problem solved introduces a new unsolved problem. -U. S. Dept. of Labor % Each profession talks to itself in its own unique language. Apparently there is no Rosetta Stone. % Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. -Frederick Brooks Jr. % 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 3 weeks.) % Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. -Benjamin Franklin % Earn cash in your spare time - blackmail your friends. % Earnestness alone makes life eternity. -Carlyle % Earth Tones: A youthful subgroup interested in vegetarianism, tie-dyed outfits, mild recreational drugs, and good stereo equipment. Earnest, frequently lacking in humor. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Earth girls are easy. % Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun. -Jeff Berner % Ease leads to habit, as success to ease. % Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath - black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. -Steve Rubenstein % Eat to live, and not on thy Diner's Club Card. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. % Ecologists believe that a bird in the bush is worth two in the hand. -Stanley C. Pearson (On second thought, a bird in the hand is finger-licking good.) % Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. -John Kenneth Galbraith % Economics: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... -Mike Harding, The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac % 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 % Economy is of itself a great revenue. -Cicero % Economy makes men independent. % Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent. -Fred Allen % Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him. -John Locke % Education belongs pre-eminently to the church ... neutral or lay schools from which religion is excluded are contrary to the fundamental principles of education. -Pope Pius XI % Education has in America's whole history been the major hope for improving the individual and society. -Gunnar Myrdal % Education is helping the child realize his potentialities. -Erich Fromm % Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature. -Thomas Henry Huxley % Education is the transmission of civilization. -Ariel and Will Durant % Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. -B. F. Skinner % Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. -Henry Peter Brougham % Education today, more than ever before, must see clearly the dual objectives: Education for living and education for making a living. -James Mason Wood % Education: A debt due from present to future generations. -George Peabody % Een schip op het strand is een baken in zee. (A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea.) -Dutch Proverb % Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -Adlai Stevenson % Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many people wonder where the word eggnog comes from. The first syllable comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where the "nog" comes from. To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in season, eggs... % Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -Bellamy Brooks % Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -Ronald Reagan, famous movie star % Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. -Fred Brooks, Jr. % Eisenhower told me never to trust a Communist. -Lyndon B. Johnson % Eisenhower was very nice, Nixon was his only vice. -C. Degen % Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? % Elections come and go, but politics are always with us. % Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. % Electrician's breakfast: ohmlettes -Raymond D. Love % Electrocution: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. % Elevator Rules: 1) Face forward. 2) Fold hands in front. 3) Do not make eye contact. 4) Watch the numbers. 5) Don't talk to anyone you don't know. 6) Stop talking with anyone you do know when anyone you don't know enters the elevator. 7) Avoid brushing bodies. -Psychologist Layne Longfellow % Elevators smell different to midgets. % Elevators traveling in the desired direction are always delayed and on arrival tend to run in pairs, threes of a kind, full houses, etc. -Pete Maiken % Eleven reasons a cucumber is better than a man: 1) Cucumbers stay up all night, and you won't have to sleep in the wet spot. 2) Cucumbers don't play the guitar and try to find themselves. 3) You won't find out later that your cucumber is married, on penicillin or likes you - but loves your brother! 4) A cucumber won't care what time of the month it is. 5) A cucumber never wants to get it on when your nails are wet. 6) Cucumbers don't say "Let's keep trying until we have a boy". 7) Cucumbers won't tell you size doesn't count. 8) A cucumber won't leave you for a cheerleader or an ex-nun. 9) Cucumbers don't fall asleep on your chest or drool on the pillow. 10) Cucumbers don't care if you make more money than they do. 11) With a cucumber, the toilet seat is always the way you left it. % Emallgration: Migration toward lower-tech, lower-information environments containing a lessened emphasis on consumerism. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % 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. % Emotion has taught mankind to reason. -Marquis de Vauvenargues % Emotional Ketchup Burst: The bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing employers and friends - most of whom thought things were fine. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Emptiness on paper; Fleeting thoughts. Red Sox play at Fenway's Green park. % 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 % Energy Saving: Achieved when the power switch is "off" % Engineers... they love to change things. -Dr. Leonard McCoy % Enjoy your life. If you don't, no one else will. % Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May. % Enjoy your present pleasures so as not to injure those that are to follow. -Seneca % Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility. -George Orwell % Enough research will tend to confirm your conclusions. % Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence. -Henry Chester % Enthusiasm without knowledge is like running in the dark. % Entropy has us outnumbered. -Solomon Short % Entropy isn't what it used to be. % Envy is a weed that grows in all soils and climates, and is no less luxuriant in the country than in the court; is not confined to any rank of men or extent of fortune, but rages in the breasts of all degrees. -Lord Clarendon % 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. % Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor; equality is when a female idiot moves ahead as fast as a male idiot. -Ewald Nyquist % Equality of opportunity is an equal opportunity to prove unequal talents. -Sir Herbert Samuel % Ernest Coveley, thirty-seven, was sentenced to seven years in prison in London in November for sixteen armed robberies, fourteen of which were committed with a cucumber wrapped in foil to resemble a gun. (In the other two, he had used an iron bar because he said he could not afford a cucumber.) After each of the fourteen robberies, Coveley said, he would eat his weapon in a sandwich. % Err is basically a synonym for Murphy, but those who quote him over the better known prophet insist he is as real as Murphy. The basis for their argument: 1) his spirit, like Murphy's, is everywhere and 2) Err is human. % Error in operator: add beer % Errors like straws upon the surface flow: He who would search for pearls must dive below. -Dryden % Eschew Obfuscation. % Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. -Gerritt A. Blaauw % Estimated amount of fat surgically removed from Americans in 1988, in pounds: 200,400 Estimated amount of silicone and collagen implanted in Americans in 1988, in pounds: 63,250 % Eternal boredom is the price of constant vigilance. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -Woody Allen % Eternal sunshine settles on its head. -Oliver Goldsmith % Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. -Wendell Phillips % Eternity stands always fronting God; a stern colossal image with blind eyes, and dim lips, that murmur evermore, "God, God, God!" -Mrs. Browning % Ethnomagnetism: The tendency of young people to live in emotionally demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't understand it there, mother - they *hug* where I live now." -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Ettorre's Observation: The other line moves faster. % 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 % Evangelists do it with Him watching. % Even God cannot change the past. % Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. % Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. % Even if it can't, it might. -A. J. Barton % Even if the story isn't true, if hase a grain of sense and instruction to it, and it's entertaining as well, it's worth the telling. % Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, sooner or later the product will speak for itself. -Hajime Karatsu % Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -Clarence Darrow % Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four. -Napoleon Bonaparte % Even paranoids have enemies. -Jim Pastore % Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. -Kehlog Albran, The Profit % Even the boldest zebra fears the hungry lion. % Even the smallest candle burns brighter in the dark. % Even things in themselves not positively advantageous, sometimes become so, by their tendency to provoke exertion. Every new scene, which is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself, is the addition of a new energy to the general stock of effort. -Alexander Hamilton % Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn't complain - it's still only 2 cents a day. % Even today two can live as cheaply as one. But both must be working. % Events later this year will prove your life isn't as bad as it could be. % Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. % Ever wonder about people who pay $2 for a bottle of Evian water? Just spell "Evian" backwards! % Ever wonder whether anybody could be so dumb as to require instructions telling them how to play with a Slinky (a children's toy consisting of a large flexible spring)? Well, in case you were wondering, HERE are the instructions that come with one: TO PLAY WITH SLINKY IN HANDS Hold end coils of Slinky with both hands. Now raise and lower each hand in a rhythmic motion. TO BOUNCE SLINKY UP AND DOWN Hold a few coils lightly in one hand, allowing rest of Slinky to hang down. Now in a bouncing motion, move hand slowly up and down. TO WALK SLINKY DOWN INCLINE OR SLOPE Any board or table top with a non-slip surface will do. Slope surface so rise equals about 1 foot for every 4 foot length. Place Slinky at top, flip and watch Slinky start down, end over end. % Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her. % Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same color"], that does not exist. % Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper. Everyone was eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is bend a disk. -an anonymous member of Solidarity, commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement % Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named William. -Sam Goldwyn % Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. % Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. -Edwin Hubbel Chapin % Every action or decision of an institution must be intended to keep the institution machinery working. -Robert N. Kharasch % Every child born in America can hope to grow up to enjoy tax loopholes. % Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to PUNT. % Every dog must have its day. -Jonathon Swift % Every editor of newspapers pays tribute to the Devil. -La Fontaine % Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are fingerposts on the road to achievement. -Charles R. Kettering % Every great or original writer in proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste by which he must be relished. -Wordsworth % Every great philosophy is unconscious autobiography. % Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. -Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 % 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 and woman thinks of changing humanity, but none think of changing themselves. % Every man desires to live long, but no man desires to be old. -Jonathon Swift % Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. -Bernard M. Baruch % Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95. % 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, it is evident that every program can be reduced to one instruction that does not 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 purchase has its price. % Every silver lining has a cloud around it. % Every solution breeds new problems. % Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. % Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. % Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. % 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 complains of his memory, no one of his judgment. % 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. % Everyone will avoid you, even though your personality isn't infectious. % Everything I say is a lie... % Everything bows to success, even grammar. % Everything east of the San Andreas fault will eventually plunge into the Atlantic ocean. % Everything happens at the same time with nothing in between. -Paul Hebig % Everything has two handles; the one soft and manageable, the other such as will not endure to be touched. If then your brother do you an injury, do not take it by the hot hard handle, by representing to yourself all the aggravating circumstances of the fact; but look rather on the soft side, and extenuate it as much as is possible, by considering the nearness of the relation, and the long friendship and familiarity between you- obligations to kindness which a single provocation ought not to dissolve. And thus you will take the accident by the manageable handle. -Epictetus % Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. -Lazarus Long % Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs. % Everything is for sale; only the price is negotiable. % Everything is matter. Matter is electricity. Electricity is invisible, intangible. Therefore it is nothing. Therefore everything is nothing. % Everything is more complicated than it looks to most people. -Frederick Lewis Allen % Everything is nothing. Everything is all. All is one. One is inconceivable, infinite. Therefore it is nothing. Therefore everything is nothing. % Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying. -Ingmar Bergman % Everything needs a little oil now and then. % Everything put together sooner or later falls apart. -Paul Simon % Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. -Albert Einstein % Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. % Everything takes more time and money. -Anne DeCaprio % Everything tastes more or less like chicken. -Jeffery F. Chamberlain % Everything that exceeds the bounds of moderation has an unstable foundation. -Seneca % Everything was fine until they invented four-letter words: WORK HARD WORK VERY HARD WORK % Everything was fine until they invented women. % Everything worthwhile is mandatory, prohibited, or taxed. % Everything you know is wrong! % Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. -Erwin Knoll % Everything you've learned in school as obvious becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. -R. Buckminster Fuller % Evil habits soil a fine dress more than mud; good manners, by their deeds, easily set off a lowly garb. -Plautus % Evil thoughts intrude in an unemployed mind, as naturally as worms are generated in a stagnant pool. % Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory. -Jimmy Swaggart % Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wise man can answer. % Examine the contents, not the bottle. -The Talmud % Example is a living law, whose sway Men more than all the written laws obey. -Sedley % Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. -Albert Schweitzer % Examples I could cite you more: But be contented with these four; For when one's proofs are aptly chosen Four are as valid as four dozen. -Prior % Exams will always contain questions not discussed in class. -M. M. Johnston % Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as Garfield Gets Spayed, and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you how to be excellent: In Search of Excellence, Finding Excellence, Grasping Hold of Excellence, Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It, etc. -Dave Barry, In Search of Excellence % Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labor. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere in the habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those advantages which, like the hands of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation. -Sir Joshua Reynolds % 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. % Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. -Ellyn Mustard % Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not. -Xenophon % 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. % Excessive official restraints on information are inevitably self defeating and productive of headaches for the officials concerned. -Edward Kennedy, AP correspondent % Exclusive: Imported product % Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work. -John G. Pollard % Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. So put your make-up on heavily today. % Exercise your First and Second Amendment Rights at the same time - Shoot the book burners. % Expatriate Solipsism: When arriving in a foreign travel destination one has hoped was undiscovered, only to find many people just like oneself; the peeved refusal to talk to said people because they have ruined one's elitist travel fantasy. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Expect a letter from a friend who will ask a favor of you. % Expect better treatment from those around you than you give them. You deserve to be disappointed. % Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. % Expense Accounts: Corporate food stamps. % Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other. -Poor Richard's Almanac % Experience is awareness of encompassing the totality of things. % Experience is directly proportional to equipment ruined. % Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you. -Aldous Huxley % 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 comb that Nature gives us when we are bald. % Experience is the one thing you have plenty of when you're too old to get the job. % Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. % Experience is the worst teacher; it gives the test before presenting the lesson. % 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 keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarcely in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. Remember this: They that will not be counseled cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you over the knuckles. -Poor Richard's Almanac % Experience keeps a dear school, but it's a hell of a campaign tactic. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % Experience teaches that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements, in the most ordinary occupations, are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and by slow gradations. Men would resist changes, so long as even a bare support could be ensured by an adherence to ancient courses, and perhaps even longer. -Alexander Hamilton % Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. % Experiments are often tricky- There's no exception to this rule, What CAN have made that rat a sticky, slimy, rather smelly puddle? % Experiments must be reproducible- they should always fail in the same way. % Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so. -Lazarus Long % Experts do not like surprises. It makes them look bad at the home office. -Vic Gold % Experts in advanced countries underestimate by a factor of 2 to 4 the ability of people in underdeveloped countries to do anything technical. (Examples: Japanese on warplanes, Russians on the bomb, Iranians on refineries ... etc.) -Professor Charles P. Issawi % Exploit the inevitable (which means, take credit for anything good which happens whether you had anything to do with it or not). % Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules: NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and address - with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) -- to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card (without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the the Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize. % Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, cosmic consciousness, and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves offer more plausible alternatives. -Barry L. Beyerstein % Extreme avarice is always mistaken; there is no passion which is oftener further away from its mark, nor upon which the present has so much power to the prejudice of the future. -La Rochefoucauld % Eye have a spelling checker, It came with my PC; It plainly marks four my revue Mistakes I cannot sea. I've run this poem threw it, I'm sure your please too no, Its letter perfect in it's weigh, My checker tolled me sew. % Eyes with the same blue witchery as those of Psyche, which caught love in his own wiles. % F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! % FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... % Facts and truth are often cousins, not brothers. -Edward Bunker % Facts are God's arguments, we should be careful never to misunderstand or pervert them. -Tyron Edwards % Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. % Facts are stupid until brought into connection with some general law. -Louis Agassiz % Facts are to the mind the same thing as food to the body. On the due digestion of facts depends the strength and wisdom of the one, just as vigor and health depend on the other. The wisest in council, the ablest in debate, and the most agreeable in the commerce of life, is that man who has assimilated to his understanding the greatest number of facts. -Edmund Burke % Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley % Faculty purchases of equipment and supplies always increase to match the funds available, so these funds are never adequate. -Thomas L. Martin % Fail me again and you'll breakfast on burning coals! % Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. % Fairy Tale: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. % Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death, To break the shock blind nature cannot shun, And lands thought smoothly on the further shore. -Young % Faith goes out through the window when beauty comes in at the door. % Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves. -Eric Hoffer % Faith in immortality, like belief in Satan, leaves unanswered the ancient question: is God unable to prevent suffering and thus not omnipotent? or is he able but not willing to prevent it and thus not merciful? And is he just? % Faith is never identical with piety. -Karl Barth % Faith is not reason's labor, but repose. -Young % Faith is one of those words that connotes, however irrationally, some kind of virtue in itself. -Louis J. Halle % Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move. % Faith is the soul going out of itself for all its wants. -Boston % Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 9:1 % Faith lights us through the dark to Deity. -Davenant % Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible. -William James % Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person. -Walter Kaufmann % Faith, n: That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue. % Faith: An illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. -H. L. Mencken % 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. % Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint. -Dave Sim, author of Cerebrus. % Fame may be compared to a scold: the best way to silence her is to let her alone, and she will at last be out of breath in blowing her own trumpet. -Fuller % Fame-induced Apathy: The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame-induced Apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Familiarity breeds attempt. % Familiarity breeds content. % Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister -Su Tung-p'o % Famous last words: 1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. 2) Don't worry, I can handle it. 3) Don't worry, it's not loaded. 4) If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop. 5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. 6) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. 7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. 8) We won't need reservations. 9) What happens if you touch these two wires tog- 10) You and what army? % Fancy gizmos don't work. -Jane Bryant Quinn % Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels. -Goya % Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. % 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 % Farewell a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man. Today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost. -Shakespeare % Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -Oscar Wilde % Fast personal decisions are likely to be wrong. % Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow. -Cowper % Fathers alone a father's heart can know What secret tides of still enjoyment flow When brothers love, but if their hate succeeds, They wage the war, but 'tis the father bleeds. -Edward Young % Favorite Tabloid Headlines: * Baby born with winning lotto ticket * Princess Di to become an American * Elvis' face appears in Maytag window during rinse cycle * Bigfoot ate my twins * Jane Wyman: Life with Ron prepared me for 'Falcon Crest' role * Why Mr. T. sleeps with a night-light * Exclusive: Why Pulitzer panel shuns tabloids % Fear is the tax that the conscience pays to guilt. -Sewell % Feed yourself and feed others. Then, if you have to say good -bye, it won't matter. You will have shared love. -Jeanne Moreau % Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ... % Fellows who have no tongues are often all eyes and ears. -Haliburton % Felson's Law: To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. % Feminists say 60 percent of the country's wealth is in the hands of women. They're letting men hold the other 40 percent because their handbags are full. -Earl Wilson % Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you. % Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly - sometimes to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," gulping down other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike. Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over their naked bodies, are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. % Few ever lived to a great age, and fewer still ever became distinguished, who were not in the habit of early rising. -Todd % Few love to hear the sins they love to act. -Shakespeare % Few of us ever test our powers of deduction, except when filling out an income tax form. % Few people now believe in the devil; but very many enjoy behaving as their ancestors behaved when the Fiend was a reality as unquestionable as his Opposite Number. % Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure which is useful to them, to praise which deceives them. -La Rochefoucauld % Few young men of high gifts and fine tastes look forward to entering public life, for the probability of disappointments and vexations of a life in Congress so far outweigh its attractions that nothing but exceptional ambition or a strong sense of public duty suffices to draw such men into it. Law, education, literature, the higher walks of commerce, finance, or railway work offer a better prospect of enjoyment or distinction. -Lord James Bryce % Fidel Castro was addressing a huge crowd in Havana: "They accuse me of intervening in Angola..." and a voice in the crowd cried loudly, "Peanuts, Popcorn!" Castro resumed: "They say I've intervened in Mozambique..." and was again interrupted by the cry of "Peanuts, Popcorn!" Picking up a third time, Castro went on: "They tell me I'm intervening in Nicaragua..." and once more the vendor yelled, "Peanuts, Popcorn!" Losing his temper, Castro snapped, "If that capitalist bastard yells 'Peanuts, Popcorn!' once more, I'll kick him all the way to Miami!" Whereupon the entire audience yelled "PEANUTS, POPCORN!" % Fie for shame, you lascivious, lewd, lecherous, libidinous, lustful, licentious, dirty bum!! % Fie! What a spendthrift he is of his tongue! -Shakespeare % Field Test: Putting your software out to pasture. % Field Tested: Manufacturer lacks test equipment % Field's revelation: If you see a man holding a clipboard and looking official, the chances are good that he is supposed to be doing something menial. % Fighting Words Say my love is easy had, Say I'm bitten raw with pride, Say I am too often sad - Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young, Say I woo and coddle care, Say the devil touched my tongue - Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, And I get me another man! -Dorothy Parker % Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity. % Finagle's Laws: 1) Science is truth. Don't be misled by facts. 2) If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. 3) In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. Corollaries: a) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. b) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately. 4) 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. [see Fusion, Cold] 5) Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. 6) The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. 7) Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something that either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. % Final exam in philosophy: "Prove that the chair on the desk does not exist". Student turned in "What chair?" and got an A. % Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it. -James Stephens % Find happiness in your work, or you may never find it anywhere else. % Find out the cost before you get in. % Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. -Carl Sagan % 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. % Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less: "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..." Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to: P.O. Box 35 Baffled Greek, Michigan % Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. -Alexander Pope % Fire that's closest kept burns most of all. -Shakespeare % First Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live. % First Law of Bridge: It's always the partner's fault. % First Law of Office Holders: Get reelected. % 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 Wing-Walking: Never leave hold of what you've got until you've got hold of something else. -Donald Herzberg % First do what is nessacary, Then do what is possible And soon you are doing the impossible. % First draw your curves, then plot your data. % First get an absolute conquest over thyself, and then thou wilt easily govern thy wife. -Fuller % First impressions are of major importance in business matters. -J. Pierpont Finch % First must give place to last, because last must have his time to come; but last gives place to nothing, for there is not another to succeed. -Bunyan % Fish and visitors stink in three days. -Poor Richard % Flappity, floppity, flip The mouse on the m"obius strip; The strip revolved, The mouse dissolved In a chronodimensional skip. % Flattery is a sort of bad money, to which our vanity gives currency. -La Rochefoucauld % Flattery is all right- if you don't inhale. -Adlai Stevenson % Flee at once, all is discovered. % Flog's law: flog spelled backward is golf, and vis versa. % 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. % Flowers are like the pleasures of the world. -Shakespeare % 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 is the second greatest experience known to man. Landing is the first. % Flying saucers on occasion Show themselves to human eyes. Aliens fume, put off invasion While they brand these tales as lies. % Fog Lamps: Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the fronts of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the driver's brain is in a fog. See also "Idiot Lights". % Food that tastes the best has the highest number of calories. -Rozanne Weissman % Foolproof Operation: no provision for adjustment % Fools are certain, but wise men hesitate. % Fools make feasts and wise men eat them. -Poor Richard % Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. -Alexander Pope % Football has as much to do with Education as Bullfighting has to Agriculture. -Veblen % For 40 years I have analyzed stocks and other money markets. Now I have made a remarkable discovery. The Confederate dollar has risen in value 7.4 percent a year since 1965. It has outperformed the German mark, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. -Vincent W. Allen % For I dipt into the future, Far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, And all the wonder that would be. -Tennyson % For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind. % For Sale by Owner: Complete Set of Encyclopedia Brittanica Excellent condition, but no longer needed; My wife knows everything. % For adult education, nothing beats children. % For an adequate time call 555-3321. % For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. % For best results machine wash cold, tumble dry low. do not bleach, etc. For not-so-good results drag behind car through puddles and dry on roof rack. % For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. -Main % For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill. -Richard Clopton % For every inch that is not a fool is rogue. -Dryden % For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong. -H. L. Mencken % For every proverb that confidently asserts its little bit of wisdom, there is usually an equal and opposite proverb that contradicts it. -Richard Boston % For evil news rides post, while good news baits. -Milton % For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best. -Alexander Pope % For good men but see death, the wicked taste it. -Johnson % For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is free to combat it. -Thomas Jefferson % For in religion as in friendship, they who profess most are ever the least sincere. -Sheridan % For maximum attention, it's hard to beat a good, big mistake. % For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. -Alexander Pope % For my part I can compare her to nothing but the sun; for, like him, she takes no rest, nor ever sets in one place by to rise in another. -Dryden % For nations that waste their inheritances- even nations that are profligate -usually do so in ways more subtle than individuals. Bad habits and bad advice take longer to inflict their damage; nations, too, have their reckonings, but they can survive many more nights before the hangover. -Michael Scully % For oh! so wildly do I love him That paradise itself were dim And joyless, if not shared with him. -Moore % For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. -Larry Eisenberg % For people who like that kind of book, that is the kind of book they will like. % For perfect happiness, remember two things: 1) Be content with what you've got. 2) Be sure you've got plenty. % For sale: Hot tub, 375 gallons, sleeps six. % For several years more I maintained public relations with the Almighty. But privately, I ceased to associate with him. -Jean-Paul Sartre % 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 specialization is a process that begins as an attempt to develop experts who will then inform the whole body. It can end, however, and sometimes does, in the removal of any inclination to question the supposed "experts"- who themselves are sometimes not all that expert. -Michael Scully % For success today, look first to yourself. % 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 the first time in history, one bag of groceries produces two bags of trash. -Robert Orben % For the man who has everything... Penicillin. -F. Borquin % For the memory of love is sweet, Though the love itself were in vain And what I have lost of pleasure, Assuage what I find of pain. -Lyster % For the rule of the wise over the less wise to be advantageous ... it must come about by a process of consent. And the requirement of consent can be understood only in the light of, and by recognition of, natural equality. -Harry V. Jaffa % For the tenth time, dull Daphnis, said Chloe, You have told me my bosom is snowy; You've made much fine verse on each part of my person, Now DO something % For they can conquer who believe they can. -Virgil % For they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open. -Shakespeare % For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. -Abraham Lincoln % For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must. -Thucydides % For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it. -Luke 14:28 % For years a secret shame destroyed my peace - I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece. But now I think a thought that brings me hope: Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. -Justin Richardson % For.eign Aid ['fo.r-*n 'a-d]: The transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. % Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. -Shakespeare % Ford, there's an infinite number of monkeys out here who wish to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked up. -Arthur Dent % Forecasting is very difficult, especially if it's about the future. -Edgar R. Fiedler % Forever floats that standard sheet! Where breathes the foe that falls before us, With freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us. -Joseph Rodman Drake % Forewarned is half an octopus. % Forget computers; it's hard enough getting humans to pass the Turing test. -David Bedno % Forget your opponents. Always play against par. -Sam Snead % Forgetfulness: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. % Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense. -Robert Frost % Forgiveness is better than revenge, for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage nature. -Epictetus % Forms follow function, and often obliterate it. % Fornication: Term used by people who don't have anybody to screw with. % Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. -Thomas L. Creed % Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. -Ray Simard % Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered. % Fortune is a woman. It is necessary, if you wish to master her, to take her by force before she has a chance to resist. -Niccolo Machiavelli % Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall. -Francis Bacon % Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment. % Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter is that female oysters through their living habits cast out large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large amounts of fertilization ... HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many teenagers who read The Congressional Record. % Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. -Dorothy Parker % Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially. -Socrates % Fourth Law of Thermodymanics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero. -David Ellis % Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie. % Free and fair discussion will ever by found the firmest friend to truth. -George Campbell % Free enterprise ended in the United States a good many years ago. Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and drive out the small entrepreneur. In their conglomerate forms, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the legitimacy of the state. -Gore Vidal % Free enterprise: A huge area of the American economy is still noticable to observers with peripheral vision after they subtract the public sector, conglomerates, federally supported agriculture, monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies. -Bernard Rosenberg % Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite. -Lazarus Long % Freedom comes from human beings, rather than from laws and institutions. -Clarance Darrow % Freedom hath a thousand charms to show, That slaves howe'er contented never know. -Cowper % Freedom is not enough. -Lyndon B. Johnson % Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better. -Albert Camus % Freedom to live one's life with the window of the soul open to new thoughts, new ideas, new aspirations. -Harold Ickes % Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. % Fried's 23rd Law: Ideas endure and prosper in inverse proportion to their soundness and validity. % Friends may come and friends may go, but enemies accumulate. -Dr. Thomas Jones % Friends, Romans, Hipsters, Let me clue you in; I come to put down Caeser, not to groove him. The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caeser. The cool Brutus Gave you the message: Caeser had big eyes; If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, And, like, old Caeser really set them straight. Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, - for Brutus is a real cool cat; So are they all, all cool cats, - Come I to make this gig at Caeser's laying down. % Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them. % Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You, too? I thought I was the only one." -C. S. Lewis % Friendship is no plant of hasty growth; Tho' planted in esteem's deep fixed soil, The gradual culture of kind intercourse Must bring it to perfection. -Joanna Baillie % Friendship is one soul in two bodies. % Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed. -Cicero % Friendship's the wine of life. -Young % Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling as any other fragile and precious thing. -Randolph S. Bourne % Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable. -John D. MacDonald. % Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. % Frobnicate: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying to frob a frob. See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. % Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.: An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to electronic black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to FROTZ, or more commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, and FROBNODULE. Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl. FROBBOTZIM, has also become very popular, largely due to its exposure via the Adventure spin-off called Zork (Dungeon). These can also be applied to non-physical objects, such as data structures. % From Sharp minds come... pointed heads. -Bryan Sparrowhawk % From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself. % From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor. % From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance. % From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts. -Nathaniel Hawthorne % From the "Guiness Book of World Records", 1973: Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground)(other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)." % From the April 9, 1990, London (Ontario, Canada) Free Press: A suspect in Friday's armed robbery of a CIBC bank branch in London was still free late Sunday after bluffing his way out of the city police holding cells, posing as someone being held on a drunk charge. Meanwhile, a man who was held hostage and whose car was used as a getaway vehicle [for the robbery] was stuck with a $50 towing charge after police hauled it away to check for evidence. % From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new experience in sound: 5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading sound is normal for this type of connector. % From the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years. % From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he is all mirth; he has twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him; he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. -Shakespeare % From the errors of others a wise man corrects his own. -Publilius Syrus % From the time we first begin to know, We live and learn, but not the wiser grow. -Pomfret % From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving, Whatever gods may be, That no life lives forever, That dead men rise up never, That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. -Swinburne % From women's eyes this doctrine I derive; They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academies, That show, contain, and nourish all the world, Else, none at all in aught proves excellent. -Shakespeare % Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the parent of liberty. He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and poverty will enforce dependence and invite corruption. -Johnson % 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. % Fudge Factor: A physical factor occasionally showing up in experiments as a result of stopping a stopwatch a little early to compensate for reflex error. % Fudge Factor: The numerical factor by which experimental results must be multiplied to be in agreement with theory. % Full links byte. % Fuller's Law of Cosmic Irreversibility: 1 Pot T == 1 Pot P 1 Pot P != 1 Pot T -R. Buckminster Fuller % Functionality; All the Functionality; And nothing but the Functionality. % Fundamentalist Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. % Furbling: 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. % Futuristic: can't figure out another reason why it looks as it does % Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs. % 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. % GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for committing incest. % GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20) Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room. % GIGO: Garbage in, Gospel out. % GOTO statement considered harmful -E. W. Dijkstra, title to a letter in CACM 11 % 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. % Gads, that shirt looks awful on you! % Gallantry consists in saying the most empty things in an agreeable manner. -La Rochefoucauld % Game is an ill you may with ease obtain, A sad oppression to be born with pain; And when you would the noisy clamor drown, You'll find it hard to lay the burden down. -Cooke % Gaming is the son of avarice, but the father of despair. % Garage mechanic to customer: There's nothing mechanically wrong with your car, sir- it's just an underachiever. -David Brown % Garter: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a flying; And that same flower that blooms today, Tomorrow shall be dying. -Herrick % Genderplex: The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises). -Rich Hall, Sniglets % Generalizedness of incompetence is directly proportional to highestness in hierarchy. -Guy Godin % Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion: that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly. -Francis Bacon % Generally the theories we believe we call facts, and the facts we disbelieve we call theories. -Felix Cohen % Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. % Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. You've given away every perfect thing you've ever had. % Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should. % Genius does what it must, talent does what it can. % Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple. % Genius is the highest type of reason, talent the highest type of understanding. % Genius is the talent of a man who is dead. % Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -Elbert Hubbard % Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. % Genius, in one respect, is like gold: a number of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither. % Genius: Chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright". % Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle. -Alexander Pope % Genuine status is a rare and precious jewel, and also rather easy to simulate. -Charles Merrill Smith % George Orwell was an optimist. % George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but he also admitted doing it. Do you know why his father didn't punish him? Because George still had the axe in his hand. % Gerald's postulate: If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong is the one that will do the most damage. % Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: 1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. 2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. 3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. % Get Ahead!!! You could use one. % Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! % Get a shot off FAST! This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect. -Lazarus Long % Get forgiveness now - tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. % Get hold of portable property. -Charles Dickens, Great Expectations % Get piece of mind through trepananation. % Get the Hell out of my way! -John Galt % Get thee behind me, Satan, and push me along! % Get your enemies to read your works in order to mend them, for your friend is so much your second self that he will judge too like you. -Pope % Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. -Mark Twain % Getting on the cover of TIME guarantees the existence of opposition in the future. -John Kenneth Galbraith % Gillian: Sure you won't change your mind? Spock: Is there something wrong with the one I have? % Ginsberg's Theorem: 1) You can't win. 2) You can't break even. 3) You can't even quit the game. Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit: 1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. 2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. 3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game. % Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life. % Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. -Calvin Keegan % Give a skeptic an inch and he'll measure it. % Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. -Abraham Kaplan % Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. -Shakespeare (The only good part of Polonius' advice to Laertes) % Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says "For the woman I love" and the second, "For my best friend." % Give him an inch and he'll screw you. -Dave Farber % 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 health and a day, and I will make ridiculous the pomp of emperors. -Ralph Waldo Emerson % Give me liberty or give me death! -Patrick Henry % Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! % Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue. -Giuseppe Garibaldi % Give me to drink, Mandragora, That I may sleep away this gap of time. -Shakespeare % Give them a number or give them a date, but never both. -Edgar R. Fiedler % Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. % Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. -Shakespeare % Give us, O give us, the man who is cheerful in his work! Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. -Carlyle % Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. % Give your decisions, never your reasons; your decisions may be right, your reasons are sure to be wrong. -Earl of Mansfild % Given a choice between two bald political candidates, the American people will vote for the less bald of the two. -Vic Gold % Given enough time, memory and disk space... anything is possible. % Given enough time, what you put off doing today will eventually get done by itself. -G. Gestra % Glib's laws of unreliability: 1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are more unreliable. 2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. 3) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, whereas detectable errors are limited. 4) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. % Gnudist: a person who hacks while wearing no clothes. Gnubile: an eligible young hacker. Gnugat: a hacker's favorite candy (Though it contains little gnutrition.) Gnumatic: a computer filled with air. Gnuisance: a novice hacker who keeps pestering you with foolish questions. Gnuance: a subtle, clever hack in the favorite language. Gnumerical analysis: what you use a supercomputer for. Gnumismatist: a hacker who collects coins? % Go climb a gravity well! % Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. % Go kiss a Wookie! % Go not to the elves for advice, for they will say both yes and no. -J. R. R. Tolkien % 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. -National Lampoon, Deteriorada % Go to friends for advice; to women for pity; to strangers for charity; to relatives for nothing. % Go to the 28th anual snail & slug festival! music-rides-games-prizes... Fun for the whole family. % Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as the social ramble ain't restful. -Satchel Paige % Go where the money is. -Bank robber Willie Sutton % God and the devil are an effort after specialization and division of labor. % God blesses still the generous thought And still the fitting word He speeds, And truth, at His requiring taught, He quickens into deeds. -Whittier % God decided to take the devil to court and settle their differences once and for all. When Satan heard this, he laughed and said, "And where do you think you're going to find a lawyer?" % God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. % God gave you that gifted tongue of yours, and set it between your teeth, to make known your true meaning to us, not be rattled like a muffin man's bell. -Carlyle % God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can chose our friends. % God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ... The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at night! -Rev. Henry Ward Beecher % God heals and the doctor takes the fee. -Poor Richard % God helps those who have 7 percent mortgages. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % God is REAL (unless cast to an INTEGER). % God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. -Voltaire % God is dead. -Nietzsche Nietzsche is dead. -God % God is not a cosmic bellboy! % God is not dead! He's alive and autographing Bibles at Cody's. % God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent- it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash, and in small bills. -Lazarus Long % 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 man, and therefore let him pass for man. -Shakespeare % God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. -Mark Twain % 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 moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. -Cowper % God must love the common man; He made so many of them. % God requireth not a uniformity of religion. -Roger Williams % God rest ye CS students now, Let nothing you dismay. The VAX is down and won't be up, Until the first of May. The program that was due this morn, Won't be postponed, they say. - Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. - The bearings on the drum are gone, The disk is wobbling, too. We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol Can't tell false from true. And now we find that we can't get At Berkeley's 4.2. % God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. -William Bragg % God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on where to go. "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. "Well, how about Mercury?" "No, it's too hot there." "Okay," said St. Peter, "What about Earth?" "No," said God, "They're such horrible gossips. When I was there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're still talking about it." % God will not give any soldier ammunition who is not willing to go into battle. % God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity he would be careless; and understanding of his adversity he would be senseless. -Augustine % God: The contrapuntal genius of human fate. % Going the speed of light is bad for your age. % 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. % Gold: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them. -Mike Harding, The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac % Goldenstern's Rules: 1) Always hire a rich attorney. 2) Never buy from a rich salesman. % Goldfish... what stupid animals. Even Ray Jones stops eating before he bursts. % Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds. -Miguel de Cervantes % Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. -La Rouchefoucauld % Good breeding shows itself most where, to an ordinary eye, it appears least. -Addison % Good conversation, like a defensive driver, yields the right of way. -William Walter De Bolt % Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. % Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. % Good day for water sports. Take a bath with a friend. % Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. % Good day to let down old friends who need help. % Good health will be yours for a long time. All of your friend will die before you. % Good healthy attitudes are the ones everyone agrees with, because if we didn't agree with it, it wouldn't be very healthy. % Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness its poison. -Stanislaus % Good intentions always randomize behavior. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Good intentions are far more difficult to cope with than malicious behavior. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % Good is recognized only when it goes away, evil when it comes. % Good judgment comes from experience. And experience, well that comes from having bad judgment. -Jim Horning % Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. % Good managers learn to share decisions with others even though they alone must accept responsibility for the results. % Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor. Pay no attention to him. % 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 night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow. -Shakespeare % Good parking places are always on the other side of the street. -Dr. R. F. Gumperson % Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. -William Saroyan % Good salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry. -Robert E. Schenk % Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter. -Max Beerbohm % Good wine and brave men don't last long. % Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows. % Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -George Saunders' dying words % Goodness is beauty in its best estate. -Marlowe % Goodwill is achieved by many actions; it can be lost by one. % Gossip is the opiate of the depressed. % Got Mole problems? Call Avogardo at 6.02 x 10^23 % Goulden's Axiom of the Bouncing Can: If you drop a full can of beer, and remember to rap the top sharply with your knuckle prior to opening, the ensuing gush of foam will be between 89 and 94 percent of the volume that would splatter you if you didn't do a damn thing and went ahead and pulled the top immediately. -Joseph C. Goulden % Government action and inaction both gravely impair business confidence. -Mark Epernay % Government expands to absorb all available revenue and then some. -Wiker % 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 % Government under democracy is government by orgy...almost by orgasm. % Governments last as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves from the over-taxed. % Governments, like physicians, must simultaneously be the masters and the servants of those whom they govern. -Harry V. Jaffa % 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. % Graffitti O' the Week: Don't Write On Walls! (and underneath) You want I should type? % Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. % Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in Venice; but his reasons are as two grains of wheat in two bushels of chaff; you seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search. -Shakespeare % Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases. -Magnifico Giganticus (aka the Mule) % Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build up their philosophy of life. -A. J. Cronin % Gravity is a mystery of the body, invented to conceal the defects of the mind. -La Rochefoucauld % Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. % Gravity: it's not just a great idea... it's the law! % Gray's Law of Programming: `n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as `n' tasks. % Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds. -Petrarch % Great minds run in great circles. % Great souls by instinct to each other turn. Demand alliance, and in friendship burn. -Addison % Green Division: To know the difference between envy and jealousy. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % 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. % Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys. -Lamartine % Grissom's Conundrum: The smallest hole will empty the largest container, unless it is made intentionally for drainage, in wich case it will clog. % Grocery bagger to customer: "Do you want to destroy a tree by using a paper bag or endanger the environment with plastic?" % Grub first, then ethics. -Bertolt Brecht % Gummidge's Law: The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public. % Guns don't kill people; bullets do. % Gyroscope: A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin. -Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary % 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 % H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can - do. Those who can't - teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach - administrate. % HAND CRAFTED: machine that assembles it is operated without gloves % HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. -Walt Kelley % HIGH ACCURACY: unit on which all parts fit % HYPOTHESIS: A prediction based on theory formulated after an experiment is performed designed to account for the ludicrous series of events which have taken place. % Habit gives endurance, and fatigue is the best nightcap. -Kincaid % Habit is habit, and not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed down stairs one step at a time. -Mark Twain % Habit is the easiest way to be wrong again. % Habit with him was all the test of truth; "It must be right: I've done it from my youth." -George Crabbe % Hackers do it with bugs. % Hackers do it with fewer instructions. % Hackers know all the right MOVs. % Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. % Had there been an actual emergency, you would no longer be here. % Haiku's inventor must have had seven fingers on his middle hand % Hail to the sun god He sure is a fun god Ra! Ra! Ra! % Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) % Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at. -Solomon Short % Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill - when it's still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, Let me have a nice half-done. Worth the trouble, wasn't it? -Arthur Naiman, Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish % Hall's Laws of Politics: 1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. 2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed. 3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts). % Hand: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was rather large. % Handle all business ventures with discretion so you do not end up a loser. % Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. -Fred Allen (Sarcasm is the sour cream of wit.) % 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 at age ten was finding an empty six pack of returnable Coke bottles. The poor kids these days will never know that they missed, which is why we have a generation gap. -Richard N. Farmer % Happiness is a paycheck every week. % Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. -Ogden Nash % Happiness is having friends who laugh at your stories when they're not so funny and sympathize with you in your troubles even when they're not so bad. % Happiness is in direct proportion to the distance from the home office. Contradictory Corollary: The diner who is furthest from the kitchen is a nervous eater. -Al Blanchard % Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like. -La Rochefoucauld % Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion. % Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -Oscar Levant % Happiness: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Happy the man, and happy he alone, He, who can call today his own; He who, secure within, can say Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. -Dryden % Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances? % Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. % Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark The Duke is fond of kittens He likes to take their insides out And use them for his mittens From The Thirteen Clocks % 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. Harrison's Postulate: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. % Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon. -Dave Barry, Tenting Grandpa Bob % 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. % 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 everyone noticed that all the letters of the word database are typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. % Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil. -Niccolo Machiavelli % Hatred: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Have people realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a non-cynical, or even an informative cookie? Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only serves to blunt the warning signs. % Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. -Robert Cody % 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 ever seen a plant with its leaves curled up? Have you watered it and watched its leaves spread out again? Almost as quick as that can be the response of a child's mind to a teacher who knows how to nourish it. -Morris Mandel % Have you ever wondered why you always run out of breath when you throw up? Ah, but a man's retch should exceed his gasp, else what's a heaving for? % Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? % He alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without being observed. -Lavater % He became mellow before he became ripe. -Alexander Woolcott % He compares your nastiness to that of a man who rises in the morning and finds that the shoe he has just put his foot in has been used the night before as a chamber pot. % He conquers who endures. -Perseus % He deservedly loses his own property who covets that of another. -Phoedrus % He doth bestrice the narrow world, Like a Colossus; and we patty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. -Shakespeare % He doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe himself. -Shakespeare % He experienced that nervous agitation to which brave men as well as cowards are subject; with this difference, that the one sinks under it, like the vine under the hailstorm, and the other collects his energies to shake it off, as the cedar of Lebanon is said to elevate its boughs to disperse the show which accumulates upon them. -Sir Walter Scott % He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions. % He had had had where he should have had had had. % 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 has more goodness in his little finger Than you have in your whole body. -Jonathon Swift % He has, I know not what, of greatness in his looks, and of high fate, that almost awes me. -John Dryden % He hated to set precedents; those who did so were sometimes promoted, more frequently they joined their ancestors. -Robert A. Heinlein % He hath out-villained villainy so far, that the rarity redeems him. -Shakespeare % He hath riches sufficient, who hath enough to be charitable. -Sir Thomas Browne % He is a legend in his own mind. -Ron Randall % He is considered the most graceful speaker who can say nothing in most words. % He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. % He is now rising from affluence to poverty. -Mark Twain % He is poor whose expenses exceeds his income. -La Bruyere % He is the encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn; and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man. -Ralph Waldo Emerson % He is the most wretched of men who has never felt adversity. % He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. % He jests at scars who never felt a wound. -Shakespeare % He kept him as the apple of his eye. % He knew what's what, and that's as high As metaphysics wit can fly. -Meta % He likes to flirt, but toward you his intentions are honorable. % He lives by rule who lives himself to please. -Crabbe % He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. % He may look like a clown, but here is the soul of a leader. % He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil. -Shakespeare % He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. -John Mason Brown, drama critic % He stopped on a dime; unfortunately the dime was in Mr. Rococo's pocket. % He that despairs, degrades the Deity, and seems to intimate, that He is insufficient, or not just to his word; and in vain hath read the Scriptures, the world and man. -Feltham % He that falls in love with himself, will have no rivals. -Poor Richard % He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it may be a saint; that boasteth of it is a devil. -Fuller % He that hath a beard is more than a youth; And he that hath none is less than a man. -Shakespeare % He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. -Jesus Christ % He that lives upon Hope dies farting. -Benjamin Franklin % He that loses hope may part with anything. -Congreve % He that never changed any of his opinions never corrected any of his mistakes; and he who was never wise enough to find out any mistakes in himself will not be charitable enough to excuse mistakes in others. % He that riseth late is not campaigning in New York today. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % He that sips of many arts, drinks of none. -Fulton % He that spends all his life in sport is like one who wears nothing but fringes and eats nothing but sauces. -Fuller % He that uses many words for the explaining any subject, doth like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. -Ray % He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends. -Shakespeare % He that will have no books but those that are scarce, evinces about as correct a taste in literature as he would do in friendship, who would have no friends but those whom all the rest of the world have sent to coventry. -Colton % He that will keep a monkey should pay for the glasses he breaks. -Seldon % He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator. -Francis Bacon % He that will not command his thoughts will soon lose the command of his actions. % He that would have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. -Shakespeare % He thinks that he could easily win your heart. % He thought he saw an albatross That fluttered 'round the lamp. He looked again and saw it was A penny postage stamp. You'd best be getting home, he said, The nights are rather damp. % He travels fastest who travels alone... but he hasn't anything to do when he gets there. % He walks as if balancing the family tree on his nose. % He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable. % He was so crooked you could use him to pull corks with... % He was so narrow-minded he could see through a keyhole with two eyes. % He wasn't exactly hostile to facts, but he was apathetic about them. -Woolcott Gibbs % He who Laughs, Lasts. % He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. % He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself. -William S. Paley, chairman of CBS % He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it. -Von Knebel % He who can will. He who can't, will teach. -M. M. Johnston % He who comes from the kitchen, smells of its smoke; and he who adheres to a sect, has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student; and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants. -Lavater % He who conceals a useful truth is equally guilty with the propagator of an injurious falsehood. -Augustine % He who dies with the most FRIENDS wins. % He who envies another admits his own inferiorities. % He who fights the devil with his own weapons, must not wonder if he finds him an overmatch. -South % He who findeth sensuous pleasures in the bodies of lush, hot, pink damsels is not righteous, but he can have a lot more fun. % He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last. % He who has burned his mouth blows his soup. % He who has had, has been, but he who hasn't been, has been had. % He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything. % He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. % He who has no mind to trade with the devil, should be so wise as to keep from his shop. -South % He who has not a good memory, should never take upon him the trade of lying. -Montaigne % He who hates vices hates mankind. % He who hath many friends hath none. -Aristotle % He who hesitates is poor. -Max Bialystock % He who hesitates is sometimes saved. % He who invents adages for others to peruse takes along rowboat when going on cruise. % He who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. % He who is most slow in making a promise, is the most faithful in the performance of it. -Rousseau % He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him a spinal cord would fully suffice. -Albert Einstein % He who laughs last probably doesn't understand the joke. % He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass. -Edgar R. Fiedler % He who picks up one end of a stick picks up the other. He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. -Henry Fosdick % He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion. -Goethe % He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of winners. % He who receives a good turn should never forget it; he who does one should never remember it. -Charron % He who reforms himself, has done more towards reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots. -Lavater % He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires and fears, is more than a king. -Milton % He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of man. -Lavater % He who sees only half the problem will be buried in the other half. -Richard N. Farmer % He who sees what comes out, and why, gains wisdom. -Richard N. Farmer % He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return. -South African Saying % He who shouts loudest has the floor. % He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. % He who steals for others ends up being hanged for himself. % He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. -Alexander Pope % He who uses an 8088 will be reincarnated as one. % He who when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done, is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling. -Lavater % He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot, is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave. -Byron % He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. -M. C. Escher % He whose pride oppresses the humble may, perhaps, be humbled, but will never be humble. -Lavater % He writes his plays for the ages- the ages between five and twelve. -George Jean Nathan % He'll sit here and he'll say, "Do this! Do that!" and nothing will happen. -Harry S. Truman, on presidential power % 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 ... % Headline in the Oct. 15 edition of the Wall Street Journal: "Restaurants Beef Up Vegetarian Menus" % Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. % Hear about the new breed in pet shops? They crossed a pit bull with a collie. It bites your leg off and goes for help. % Hear one side, and you will be in the dark; Hear both sides, and all will be in the clear. -Haliburton % Heard about the who couldn't spell? He spent the night in a warehouse. % Heat expands: In the summer the days are longer. % Heat produced by pressure expands to fill the mind available, from which it can pass only to a cooler mind. -C. Northcote Parkinson % Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present fate. -Alexander Pope % Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge that no king can corrupt. -Shakespeare % Heaven lies about us in our infancy. -Shakespeare % Heaven needs no press agent because it has no competition, but sin is competitive. % Heaven's gates ate not so highly arch'd as princes' palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees. -Webster % Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Heavy: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force. % Heisenberg may have slept here. % Heisenberg was wrong, I know exactly where I am and where I'm going. -Einstein % Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -Milton Friedman % Hell hath no fury like a computer scorned. % Hell hath no fury like a pacifist. -Solomon Short % Hell is a place where the motorists are French, the policemen are German, the traffic patterns are Bostonian, and the cooks are English. % Hell is not to love anymore. -Georges Bernanos % Hell is truth seen too late. -H. G. Adams % Help a swallow land at Capistrano. % Help fight continental drift. % Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! % Help me, I've crashed, and I cant boot up. % Help stamp out and abolish redundancy. % Help wanted- must be kindergarten graduate. % Help yourself, and Heaven will help you. -La Fontaine % Help, help, I'm being repressed.... % Helping one another with simple chores, watching over each others homes, sharing needs like food and firewood, simple fellowship. These things make for true community spirit. -Conrad Meinecke % Henry James had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it. -T. S. Eliot % Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I every met. -William Faulkner % Her face was like an April morn, Clad in a wint'ry cloud; And clay-cold was her lily hand, That held her sable shroud. -Mallet % Her hair was totally 1950s Indiana Woolworth perfume clerk. You know - sweet but dumb - she'll marry her way out of the trailer park some day soon. But the dress was early '60s Aeroflot stewardess - you know - that really sad blue the Russians used before they all started wanting to buy Sonys and having Guy Laroche design their Politburo caps. And such make-up! Perfect '70s Mary Quant, with these little PVC floral applique earrings that looked like antiskid bathtub stickers from a gay Hollywood tub circa 1956. She really caught the sadness - she was the hippest person there. Totally. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Her kisses left something to be desired - the rest of her. % Her life was saved by rock and roll. -Lou Reed % Her lips are roses overwashed with dew. -Greene % Her locks an ancient lady gave Her loving husband's life to save; And men - they honored so the dame -- Upon some stars bestowed her name. - But to our modern married fair, Who'd give their lords to save their hair, No stellar recognition's given. There are not stars enough in heaven. % Her tears her only eloquence. -Rogers % Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher, lived about the fifth century B.C. He is known as the "Obscure One" to his contemporaries. Keep ambiguity in mind. - Everything flows. - It is not possible to step in the same river twice. - Sea water is the purest and most polluted: for fish it is drinkable and life-giving; for men, not drinkable and destructive. - To those who are awake, there is one ordered universe common to all, whereas in sleep each man turns away from this world to one of his own. - Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. - A mans character is his destiny. - I searched into myself. - Lovers of wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed. % Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. -Peter Drucker % Here I sit, broken-hearted, All logged in, but work unstarted. First net.this and net.that, And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. The boss comes by, and I play the game, Then I turn back to net.flame. Is there a cure (I need your views), For someone trapped in net.news? I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. % Here are some more questions for you to grind to a powder and inhale... Why are they still called tennis shoes, even though few people actually play tennis in them? How can people ignore the petitioners in front of the supermarket, then complain about the sorry state of our government? Why don't acoustic guitars have wa-wa sticks? What good is a hot-air hand dryer if you've just washed your face? Was the Career Center meant to look like a Jiffy Lube? How can a book print explicit instructions for manufacturing illegal drugs and get away with it because of a disclaimer about the book being for entertainment purposes only? Whatever happened to the manned Mars mission that President Bush promised us? How could a backwards nation like the Soviet Union become our main rival? % Here at Controls, we have one chief for every Indian. % Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ... % Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason. % Here in my heart, I am Helen; I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael; I'm Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell. I'm all of the glamorous ladies At whose beckoning history shook. But you are a man, and see only my pan, So I stay at home with a book. -Dorothy Parker % Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson. It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, you picked up batches of electrons, which are very small objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting. -Dave Barry, What is Electricity? % Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion, and the discovery of a standard of judgment. -Epictetus % Hereafter I'll be able to understand everything, taking all on trust. -Tristan Corbiere % Herman's Rule: If it works right the first time, obviously you've done something wrong. % Heroism is endurance for one moment more. -George F. Kennan % Heroism- the divine relation which in all times unites a great men to other men. -Carlyle % Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms. % Hey STUPID! Nobody said computers were going to be polite. % Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! -W. C. Fields % Hey! Respect your elders. Call me Mr. Old Fart. -Dick Vignoni % Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is. % 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. % Higgeldy Piggeldy, Hamlet of Elsinore Ruffled the critics by Dropping this bomb: `Phooey on Freud and his Psychoanalysis -- Oedipus, Shmoedipus, I just love Mom.' % High salaries equals happiness equals project success. -Richard F. Moore % High school diploma or equivalent required. % Highways in worst need of repair naturally have low traffic counts, which results in low priority for repair work. % Hindsight is an exact science. % Hippogriff: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Hire a college student while he still knows everything! % Hire the morally handicapped. % His back against a rock he bore. And firmly placed his foot before; "Come one, come all! This rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I." -Scott % His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky in the serenest noon. -Willis % His eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming. -Edgar Allen Poe % His face was of the doubtful kind; That wins the eye and not the mind. -Scott % His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had money, he went to Southern California. % His heart was yours from the first moment that you met. % His imagination resembles the wings of an ostrich. -Thomas Babington Macaulay % His life was formal; his actions seemed ruled with a ruler. % His mind is like a steel trap - full of mice -Foghorn Leghorn % His style has the desperate jauntiness of a orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship. -Edmund Wilson % His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier. % His zeal was hollow; his sermons were like students' songs imperfectly recalled by a senile don. -John Rae % Historical Overdosing: To live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. Major symptomes include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Historical Slumming: The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villages - locations where time appears to have been frozen many years back - so as to experience relief when one returns "back to the present." -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Historical Underdosing: To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. Major symptomes include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % History always repeats itself: once as tragedy, the second time as farce. % History books which contain no lies are extremely dull. % History does not record anywhere, at any time, a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to face the unknown without help. But like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. -Lazarus Long % History doesn't repeat itself. Historians merely repeat each other. % History is bunk. -Aldous Huxley, Brave New World % 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 is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark. % History makes men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. -Francis Bacon % History proves nothing. -Bill Gray % History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history. -Clarence Darrow % History shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long run. Or expressed differently, the purchasing power of currency will vary inversely with the magnitude of the public debt. -William H. Peterson % History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another. Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every molt is a step gained. -Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species % Hlade's Law: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person - they will find an easier way to do it. % Hoff's Rule of Responsibility: Dividing 100 percent responsibility between two people gives each of them ten percent. % Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account. % Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side. -Han Solo % Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. -Rex Reed % Hollywood's Iron Law: Nothing succeeds like failure. % Homeowner Envy: Feelings of jealousy generated in the young and the disenfranchised when facing gruesome housing statistics. -Douglas Coupland, Generation X % Honest Officer, had I known my health stood in jeopardy I would never had lit one. -Maxim of the Hells Angels % Honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. -Shakespeare % 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. % Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part; there all the honesty lies. -Alexander Pope % Honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times. -Jonson % Honor's a thing too subtle for wisdom; if honor lie in eating, he's right honorable. -Beaumont and Fletcher % Honorable: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Hope for a miracle only after everything else has failed. % Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior. -Shakespeare % Hope is like the cork to the net, which keeps the soul from sinking in despair; and fear is like the lead to the net, which keeps it from floating in presumption. -Watson % Hope is the fawning traitor of the mind, which, while it cozens with a color'd friendship robs us of our best virtue-resolution. -Lee % Hope springs eternal in the human breast, Man never is, but always to be blest. -Alexander Pope % Hope, of all passions, most befriends us here. -Young % Hoping to goodness is not theologically sound. -Peanuts % 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 % Horse sense is what you have if, on the verge of a biting retort, you keep a bit in your mouth. % Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa. % Hospitality to the better sort, and charity to the poor; two virtues that are never exercised so well as when they accompany each other. -Atterbury % How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, A youth of labor with an age of ease. -Oliver Goldsmith % How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up the world- of Him who has created, and who provides for the joy even of insects, as carefully as if He were their Father! -Richter % How can I miss you if you won't go away? % How can you fly with the eagles when you work with the turkeys? % How can you tell if your car is a lemon? Your car might be a lemon if: 1) You can't get your glove compartment closed because of all the repair receipts. 2) The guys at the garage recognize your voice on the telephone. 3) It has broken down more than once on the way back from the shop. 4) You can tell when they've rearranged the furniture in the shop's customer lounge. 5) You leave your keys in the car in the hopes that someone will steal it. 6) Someone tried to steal it, only it wouldn't start. % How can you tell when a little moron has been using your terminal? There's white-out all over the screen. % How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? % How come wrong numbers are never busy? % How did the North win the Civil War? The South kept throwing sticks of dynamite, but the Yankees kept lighting it and throwing it back. % How did you get into artificial intelligence? Seemed logical - I didn't have any real intelligence. % How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance. -Petrarch % How do DEC repairmen change a flat tire? They replace each tire until they find the flat one. % How do I get out of this, Munroe? -John Holz % How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows. % How do cats decide when to jump suddenly up from where they were sitting comfortably curled up and dash madly around the room, knocking over everything they encounter? Fuzzy logic. % How do you accomplish anything at all when the city treasury is so bare that the addition of one coin will double its contents? % How do you define "contingency fee"? If I lose, I get nothing. If I win, you get nothing. % How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? -Elliot, E.T. % How do you keep a lawyer from drowning? Take your foot off his head. % How do you know that electrons are political? Because you can never determine their exact position. % How do you make a small fortune in Texas oil? Start with a big one. % How do you make holy water? Take ordinary water and boil the HELL out of it. % How do you play religious roulette? You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets struck by lightning first. % How do you sink an submarine? Dive down and knock on the door. % How do you spot a leader? They come in all ages, shapes and conditions. Some are poor administrators, some are not overly bright. One clue: the true leader can be recognized because somehow his people consistently turn in superior performances. -Robert Townsend % How do you tell the difference between a white owl and a gay owl? The white owl says "Who, Who". The gay owl says "Yoowho, Yoowho". % How do you tell the difference between an electrical fire and a chemical fire? You use a fire distinguisher, of course. -Dave Ascher % How do you uncover greatness in a city so poor that a man will provoke another man into an argument just so that his donkey can be eating the other man's grass while they argue? % How does God talk to ? "Attention, K-Mart Shoppers..." % How does a leader give proof of prowess in a place where a man was observed to stand all of one morning waiting for a pear on a private tree to be blown off by a wind into the street, thereby becoming public property? % How does a project get to be a year late? ... One day at a time. -Frederick Brooks, Jr. % How does one conduct great enterprises in a city where people trail oxen with a broom and pan in hopes of getting a free surprise? % How doth the VAX's C compiler Improve its object code. And even as we speak does it Increase the system load. - How patiently it seems to run And spit out error flags, While users, with frustration, all Tear their clothes to rags. % How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! -Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland % How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rest unburnished, not to shine in life! -Tennyson, Ulysses % How far high failure overleaps the bounds of low success. -Lewis Morris % How gaily a man wakes in the morning to watch himself keep on dying. -Henry S. Haskins % How immense appear to us the sins that we have not committed. % How is Sex like Air? Neither one is a big deal unless you are not getting any. % How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. % How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a light bulb? It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. % How many "coming men" has one known! Where on earth do they all go to? % How many Aggies does it take to change a light bulb? We don't know yet. No aggie has even tried to attempt this relatively complex technical feat. % How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to change a light bulb? Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue. % How many Californians does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change the bulb and three to share the experience. % How many Communists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it takes him about 30 years to realize that the old one has burnt out. % How many DBMS engineers does it take to change a light bulb? ALL: Two to support the backend, one to support the frontend, an interface engineer to screw it up, and the rest to turn the base. % How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ? Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. How long does it take? It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. What happens if you've got TWO flats? They replace your generator. % How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change it and three to form a society to remember how good the old one was. % How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. % How many IBM CPUs does it take to do a logical right shift? 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. % How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only, "This page intentionally left blank," and 20% of the definitions are of the form A ...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks. % How many Lisp programmers does it take to change a light bulb? Hmmm, I'm not sure, better find out.... Hmmm, I'm not sure, better find out.... % How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb? One. But he had divine guidance. % How many Mormons does it take to change a light bulb? Ten. One to change the bulb and nine to bring refreshments. % How many NASA managers does it take to change a light bulb? That's a known problem... don't worry about it. % How many New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to change the bulb, one to tell him how to do it, and one to tell him he's doing it all wrong. % How many Oregonians does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to change the light bulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. % How many Platonists does it take to change a lightbulb? They don't change bulbs. They have nice fires in their caves and if they need light they go out and look at the sun... % How many QA engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to screw it in and two to say I told you so when it doesn't work. % How many S.W. engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb? We don't know yet, we're still hiring. % How many Teamsters does it take to change a lightbulb? TWELVE!! YA GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?? % How many UNIX hackers does it take to change a light bulb? None, they program by the light of the terminal screens. % How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and one to mix the drinks. % How many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb? None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. % How many accountants does it take to change a light bulb? None. Just assume it's changed. % How many alchemists does it take to change a light bulb? Into what? % How many antique dealers does it take to change a light bulb? One, but she will sell the old one for $75.00. % How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb? Six. One to change it and five to fight off the lead guitarists who are trying to hog the light. % How many beer brewers does it take to change a lite bulb? 1/3 less than for a regular bulb. % How many bigots does it take to change a light bulb? Why change it? They've already seen all they want to. % How many chiropractors does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but it takes nine visits. % How many cowards, whose hearts are all false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars; Who inward search'd have livers white as milk? -Shakespeare % How many disarmament folks does it take to change a light bulb? They won't, because we already have enough bulbs to illuminate the entire world three times over. % How many doctor's does it take to change a light bulb? 1) None. They just tell it to take two asprin and come round to the surgery later. 2) None. They only sign the death certificate and phone the mortuary. 3) None. They would diagnose depression and prescribe Prozac. % How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but he'll break ten bulbs before figuring out that you can't just push it in. % How many drunks does it take to change a light bulb? Five. One to hold the bulb and four to drink until the room spins. % How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb? Does it matter? % How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness. % How many flies does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two, but how did they get in there? % How many gay-rights activists does it take to change a light bulb? None. "The light bulb shouldn't have to change for society to accept it." % How many gorillas does it take to change a light bulb? One, but you'll never get the damn thing unscrewed again. % How many graduate students does it take to change a light bulb Only one, but it may take up to 5 years for him to do it. % How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Well, the diagnostics say it's fine, buddy, so they'll fix it in software. % How many heterosexual males does it take to change a light bulb in San Francisco? Both of them. % How many home owners does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it takes two weekends and four trips to the hardware store. % How many journalists does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break the bulb in the first place. % How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? 1) It only takes one lawyer to change your light bulb to his light bulb. 2) Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following steps: 1) The party of the first part (Lawyer) shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and rotate the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a counter- clockwise direction,this point being non-negotiable. 2) Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part (Light Bulb) becomes separated from the party of the third part ("Receptacle"), the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a manner consistent with all applicable state, local and federal statutes. 3) Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of beginning installation of the party of the fourth part ("New Light Bulb"). This installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. NOTE: The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part (Lawyer), by any or all persons authorized by him, the objective being to produce the most possible revenue for the party of the fifth part, also known as "Partnership." % How many lead guitarists does it take to change a light bulb? Six. One to change it and five to stand around saying "I could have done that better." % How many lead singers does it take to change a light bulb? 1) One who stands there holding the bulb while the world revolves around him. 2) None. Get the bass player to do it. % How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and another to reflect on how much more gratifying it was than a man. % How many lightmen does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but instead of using a new bulb (which he doesn't have), he opens up the old bulb, uses a bit of scavenged wire and duct tape to reattach the filiment, replaces the screw in connector with an audio jack, strings a cable up through the rafters and reinstalls the whole thing 50 feet away where the band decides it's much better. % How many martians does it take to change a lightbulb? One and a half. % How many mathematicians does it take to change a lightbulb? One. He gives it to two existentialists thereby reducing the problem to a known joke. % How many mentally retarded polocks does it take to change a light bulb? Fifty, one to hold the light bulb and 49 to turn the house. % How many musicians does it takes to change a light bulb? Twenty. One to hold the bulb, two to turn the ladder, and seventeen in on the guest list. % How many nihilists does it take to change a light bulb? Fuck off. % How many objects does it take to change a light bulb? I don't know. They just keep passing messages around. % How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made! -Holmes % How many pollsters does it take to change a light bulb? None. They work in the dark! % How many polocks does it take to change a light bulb? Five. One to hold the bulb and four to turn the ladder. % How many procedures does it take to change a light bulb? They can't unless they have side effects. % How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None. It's a hardware problem. % How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb really has to want to change. % How many radio astronomers does it take to change a light bulb. None. They are not interested in that short wave stuff. % How many scientists does it take to change a light bulb? None. They use them as controls in double blind trials. % How many security guards does it take to change a light bulb at a Grateful Dead concert? One to change the bulb and 20 to fatally beat the Deadhead who was only there to look at the light. % How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None. They'll document it in the manual. % How many soundmen does it take to change a light bulb? one, two, one, two, testing, one, two.... % How many stacks does it take to run a program? One! don't you know anything?? % How many students from BYU does it take to change a light bulb? Two, and they both get 10 credits for it. % How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. % How many surgeons does it take to change a light bulb? None. They would wait for a suitable doner and do a filament transplant. % How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Fish. % How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools. % How many synth players does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but if you wait until next month, Yamaha will have a NEW model bulb out which is much better. (at twice the cost) % How many system managers does it take to change a light bulb? One. He holds the light bulb and the world revolves around him. % How many system staff does it take to keep a system running? I don't know, it's never been done. % How many talk show hosts does it take to change a light bulb? Three, one to change the new bulb, One to ask the old one how it feels to be replaced, and one to take questions from the audience. % How many tech writers does it take to change a light bulb? None. The user can work it out. % How many undertakers does it take to change a light bulb? None. They just paint them black and go on using them. % How many weeks are there in a light year? % How much better it is to weep at joy than joy a weeping. -Shakespeare % How much do you think I'll get for my autobiography? -Arthur Bremer (After his arrest for attempting to assassinate Governor George C. Wallace.) % 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 much lies in laughter; the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies the cold glitter, as of ice; the fewest are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but only shiff and titter and sniggle from the throat outwards, or at least produce some whiffing, husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool; of none such comes good. The man who cannot laugh is only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; but his own whole life is already a treason and a stratagem. -Carlyle % How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent. % How sharper then a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. -Shakespeare % How slow this old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, like to a stepdame, or a dowager, long withering out a young man's revenue. -Shakespeare % How still the evening is as hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! -Shakespeare % How swiftly whirls the disk; Data leaps to the floating head and is known. % How tall is a union stagehand? Don't know. I've never seen one standing up... % How the government works: The Senate gets the bill from the House. The President gets the bill from the Senate. And we get the bill for everything. % How to write good: - A preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with. - A writer must not shift your point of view. - Also, avoid awkward and affected alliteration. - Always pick on the correct idiom. - And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. - Avoid commas, that are not necessary. - Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. - Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. - Do not put statements in the negative form. - Don't overuse exclamation marks!!! - Don't use no double negatives. - Don't verb nouns. - Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns. - If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. - If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: Resist hyperbole. - If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. - It behooves us to avoid archaisms. - Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. - Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. - No sentence fragments. - Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. - Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. - Remember to never split an infinitive. - Take the bull by the hand, and don't mix metaphors. - The adverb always follows the verb. - The passive voice should never be used. - Verbs has to agree with their subjects. - Writing carfully, dangling participles should not be used. - Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague % How was Pope John Paul chosen? They took a poll. % How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. % How you look depends on where you go. % Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work. % However deceitful hope may be, she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life. -La Rochefoucauld % However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner ... sulking and nausea. -Tom K. Ryan % Hugh Hefner is a virgin. % Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. % Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. % Human industry, if left to itself, will naturally find its way to the most useful and profitable employment. -Adam Smith % Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece. -Vladimir Nabokov % Human society, man in a group, rises out of its lethargy to new levels of productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly appreciated goals. A lethargic world serves no cause well; a spirited world working diligently toward earnestly desired goals provides the means and the strength toward which many ends can be satisfied to unparalleled social accomplishment. -Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner % Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. -Isaac Asimov % Humankind cannot bear very much reality. -T. S. Eliot % Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity. -Selden % Humility is the better part of wisdom, and is most becoming in man. But let no one disparage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness. -Ferenc Kossuth % Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. % Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse. -William Gilbert % Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him. -Romain Gary % Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it. -Langston Hughes % Humor is the best antidote to reality. % Humor is the sense of the Absurd, which is despair refusing to take itself seriously. -Arland Ussher % Hunger is the best sauce. % Hunger is the best seasoning for meat, and thirst for drink. -Cicero % Hunger never saw bad bread. -Poor Richard % Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh .............. % Hypocracy is the homage which vice pays to virtue. -La Rochefoucauld % Hypocrites do the devil's drudgery in Christ's livery. -Matthew Henry % Hypotheses multiply so as to fill the gaps in factual knowledge concerning biological phenomena. -James D. Regan % I admire the person in charge of this organization. He is an artist at saying nothing out of both sides of his face. % I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than an administrator. % I am a firm believer in socialism and I know that the quicker you have monopoly in this country the quicker you will have socialism. -Charles P. Steinmetz % I am a man; nothing human is alien to me. % I am against all hobbies. I have been against ever since I figured out that nothing I ever do is considered a hobby. All my life I have had to fill out forms that ask about hobbies. I always wanted to write down "reading", but reading is not a hobby. If you collect books, that is a hobby. If you actually read them, it is not. If you happen to watch a butterfly in a field, that is not a hobby. If you put a pin through its little heart, that is a hobby. -Richard Cohen % I am an atheist, thank God! % I am but a gatherer, and a disposer of other men's stuff. -Watton % I am changing my name to Crysler I am going down to Washington, D.C. I will tell some power broker What they did for Iacocca Will be perfectly acceptable to me! I am changing my name to Chrysler, I am heading for that great receiving line. When they hand a million grand out, I'll be standing with my hand out, Yessir, I'll get mine! % I am grateful for all my problems. As each of them was overcome I became stronger and more able to meet those yet to come. I grew on all my difficulties. -J. C. Penney % I am growing weary of seeing chemicals with warning labels that imply that I shall die a horrible death simply by looking at the contents. A warning label should inform me of any *REAL* hazards, and of the precautions I should take when handling the reagent, and should not serve only to cover the manufacturer's derriere should some lawyer-happy numbskull decide to bathe in the product. A case in point from Fisher Scientific: CAUTION: May be harmful if inhaled. May cause irritation. Inhalation may produce irritation, coughing and acute pneumoconiosis from overwhelming exposure to dust. May cause a rapidly-developing pulmonary insufficiency, labored breathing, tachypnea and cyanosis followed by cor pulmonale and a short survival time. More frequently, after 10-25 years exposure, labored breathing, dry cough, chest pain, decreased vital capacity and diminished chest expansion may occur and progress to marked fatigue, extreme labored breathing and cyanosis, anorexia, cough with stringy mucous, pleuratic pain and incapacity to work. Death may result from cardiac failure or destruction of lung tissue with resulting anoxia. Has caused tumorigenic effects in laboratory animals. Skin contact may cause irritation and dermatitis. Eye contact may cause redness, irritation, and conjunctivitis. TARGET ORGANS AFFECTED: Eyes, skin, and mucous membranes. Provide local exhaust ventilation and/or general dilution ventilation to meet published limits. FIRST AID - INHALATION. Remove from exposure area to fresh air immediately. If breathing has stopped, perform artificial respiration. Keep person warm and at rest. Get medical attention immediately. SKIN: Remove contaminated clothing and shoes immediately. Wash affected area with soap or mile detergent and large amounts of water (approximately 15-20 minutes). Get medical attention. EYES: Wash eyes immediately with large amounts of water, occasionally lifting upper and lower lids (approximately 15-20 minutes). Get medical attention. Yes indeed, all of this fits right on the bottle. And just what is this hazardous product? "SEA SAND, washed" God help me, I'll never go to the beach again! % I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Get back to work! % I am never less at leisure than when at leisure, nor less alone than when I am alone. -Scipio Africanus % I am not a crook. -Richard M. Nixon % I am not a number! I am a free man! -Number Six % I am not an Economist. I am an honest man! -Paul McCracken % I am not now, and never have been, a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. -Gloria Steinem % I am not senile. -Ronald Reagan % I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it. -English Professor % I am one who finds within me a nobility that spurns the idle pratings of the great, and their mean boast of what their fathers were, while they themselves are fools effeminate, the scorn of all who know the worth of mind and virtue. -Percival % I am reading Henry James ... and feel myself as one entombed in a block of smooth amber. -Virginia Woolf % 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 master of my fate; I am captain of my soul. -W. E. Henley % I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. % I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. -Pooh-Bah, The Mikado, Gilbert * Sullivan % I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote-where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference-and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. -from John F. Kennedy's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association % I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. -G. K. Chesterton % I believe in heaven and hell- on earth. -Abraham L. Feinberg % I believe in instinct, not in reason. When reason is right, nine times out of ten it is impotent, and when it prevails, nine times out of ten it is wrong. -A. C. Benson % I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjution with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder child. -Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD % I believe that in actual fact, philosophy ranks before and above the natural sciences. -Thomas Mann % I believe that man will not endure; he will prevail. -William Faulkner % I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience. -Carl Sagan % I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street. -Neil Armstrong % I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy, but that could change. -Dan Quayle % I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. -Will Rogers % I bet the human brain is a kludge. -Marvin Minsky % I bought a blank tape at the stereo store, and came home and put it on my stereo. A few minutes later there's a knock at my door. It's a neighbor complaining. He's a mime. (I didn't REALLY hear him knock!) -Steven Wright % I bought a cordless extension cord. -Steven Wright % I bought some land that was kind of cheap. It was on someone else's property. -Steven Wright % I brake for chezlogs! % I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war. -John Milton % I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up. -Biff Barf % I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over for speeding. He asked me where I live... Right here. -Steven Wright % I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. % I came; I saw; I screwd up % I can call spirts from the vasty deep. Why so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them? -Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I % I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale; that plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful. -Shakespeare % I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. % I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself. % I can resist anything but temptation. % I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -Joe Walsh % I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma. -The Wizard of Oz % I can't help feeling a certain pride in the admiration of women. I suspect that is one of my biggest failings. -Jose Torres % I can't resist (as the superconductor said). % I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth. -Norman Cousins % I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. -Lillian Hellman % I cannot draw a cart, nor eat wild oats; if it be a man's work I will do it. -Shakespeare % I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody. -Herbert Bayard Swope % I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America, or Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II. -Dave Barry, An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar % I cannot read the fiery letters, said Frodo in a quavering voice. No, Said Gandalf, but I can. The letters are Elvish, of course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in Elven-lore: This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid). % I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. -Abraham Lincoln % I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way. % I consider your very testy and quarrelsome people in the same light as I do a loaded gun, which may, by accident, go off and kill one. -Shenstone % I could hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto. -Francis Bacon % I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more. -Richard Lovelace % I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God. -Carl Jung % I could prove God statistically. -George Gallup % I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise. % I didn't get burned on my last auto repair bill. I got Seared. % I didn't know it then, but looking back, in hind-sight, I realize that when I was younger I could see into the future. Now I'm getting all my premonitions as flashbacks! -Steven Wright % 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 dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot. -Ralph Waldo Emerson % I do desire we may be better strangers. -Shakespeare % I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. -Thomas Carlyle % I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. -Thomas Paine % I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon. -Lyndon B. Johnson % 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 forgo their use. -Galileo Galilei % I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -Thomas Jefferson % I do not know how it is with you, but for myself I generally give up at the outset. The simplest problems which come up from day to day seem to me quite unanswerable as soon as I try to get below the surface. -Justice Learned Hand % I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing. -Oliver Goldsmith % 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 in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, unless he has an atomic weapon. -Howard Chaykin % 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 how poor and inefficient a country is; they like to run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em. -Will Rogers % I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating -Boss Tweed % I don't even know what street Canada is on! -Al Capone % 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 what you mean by `glory,' Alice said Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. Of course you don't- till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,' Alice objected. When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less. The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master- that's all. -Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass % I don't know what's wrong with people! All I ask them to do is exactly what I tell them. % I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God. % 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 meet competition, I crush it. -Charles Revson % I don't mind being pampered, but I will NOT be possessed!!! % I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!? % I don't remember ever having had the itch, and yet scratching is one of nature's sweet pleasures, and so handy. % I don't take drugs - I'm not even an athlete. % 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 don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. -Woody Allen % I doubt, therefore I might be. % I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. -George Bernard Shaw % I drink to make other people interesting. -George Jean Nathan % I earn what I eat, get what I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm. -Shakespeare % I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. -Ashleigh Brilliant % I fear explanations explanatory of things explained. % I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more. -Jonas Salk % I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, so I woke up from sheer boredom. % I find I always have to write something on a steamed mirror. -Elaine Dundy % I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that can't be measured in monetary terms. Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: I came by subway. Those four words have such magic in them that if God should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly understand his long delay. % I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words. % I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic. -Winston Churchill % I gave all my forms to Sudhir. Then he came back and yelled in my ear, "Nothing went through, and its all cause of you, if you get it right once, I will cheer!" % I gave her the ring; she gave me the finger. % I gave my life to learning how to live. Now that I have organized it all it's just about over. -Sandra Hochman % 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. Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, And think of the places my get-up has been. -Pete Seeger % I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs. -H. L. Mencken % I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one. It wasn't doing what I was doing. I tried to DRAW my shadow once, but I couldn't ... my arm kept moving. -Steven Wright % I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. -Samuel Goldwyn % I had been driving my car for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident. % I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprung up obscuring my vision. I did not see the other car. % I had rather a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad. -Shakespeare % I had to hit him - he was starting to make sense. % I hardly know so true a mark of a little mind as the servile imitation of another. -Greville % I hate quotations. -Ralph Waldo Emerson % I hate to think about the past. It just brings back so many memories! -Steven Wright % I have a SPONGE that's drier behind the ears than you are! % I have a feeling that at any time about three million Americans can be had for any militant reaction against law, decency, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, compassion and the rule of reason. -John Kenneth Galbraith % I have a fine sense of ridiculous, but no sense of humor. -Edward Albee % I have a friend who is so stupid that he tried to enter the 1-900-SPELLIT contest, but he kept getting the wrong number. % I have a newspaper clipping at home where a guy breaks into the home of a bedridden, invalid old lady. She is powerless to resist him, but when he comes into her bedroom he becomes intrigued by the cluster of medicine bottles on her bedside table. He then starts sampling at random, eventually becomes sleepy, lays down on the floor at the foot of the woman's bed and still asleep when the cops show up. % I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -A. R. Longworth % I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it any time! % I have discovered the art of fooling diplomats: I speak the truth and they never believe me. -Camillo Di Cavour % I have ever held it as a maxim, never to do that through another, which it was possible for me to execute myself. -Montesquieu % I have learned To spell hors d'oeuvres Which still grates on Some people's n'oeuvres. -Warren Knox % I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. -Henry David Thoreau % I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion. -La Place % 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 never been able to understand why it is that just because I am unintelligible nobody can understand me. -Milton Mayer % I have nothing to declare except my own genius. -Oscar Wilde % I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -Kehlog Albran, The Profit % I have somewhere seen it observed, that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not harm it. -Colton % I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. -Oscar Wilde % 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; I know exactly where I left it. % I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere. % I heard Bill Clinton was Grand Marshal of a stock car race during the Labor Day weekend. A politician strikes me as an excellent choice to preside over an event where people drive in circles at high speed. % I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future. -Henrik Ibsen % I hope when you know the owrst you will at once leap into the river and swim through handsomely, and not, weather-beaten by the divers blasts of irresolution, stand shivering on the bank. -Suckling % I hourly learn a doctrine of obedience. -Shakespeare % I just DON'T understand human behaviour. -C-3PO % I just came back from Wal-mart. One of the gift items they had were these nice % I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! % I just need enough to tide me over until I need more. -Bill Hoest % 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 nothing except the fact of my ignorance. -Socrates % I know who I am. Sometimes you go away, but I'm still here. % I like a man who grins when he fights. -Winston Churchill % I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. -Art Leo % I like blood. It's a primary color. % I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. -Winston Churchill % I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. -Thomas Jefferson % I like the future, I'm in it. % I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours. % I like your approach. Now let's see your departure. % I like your game but we have to change the rules. % I loathe that low vice curiosity. -Lord Byron % I love to eat them Smurfies Smurfies what I love to eat Bite they ugly heads off, Nibble on they bluish feet. % I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be. -Carl Sandburg % I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. -Carl Sagan % I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously. -Doctor Graper % I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong. -Sam Goldwyn % I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. -Ashleigh Brilliant % I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? -Benjamin Disraeli % I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. -Shakespeare % 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 could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. -Richard Rumbold, on the scaffold % I never could get the hang of Thursdays. -Arthur Philip Dent % I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. % I never knew the old gentlemen with the scythe and hour-glass bring anything but grey hairs, thin cheeks, and loss of teeth. -Dryden % I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man coming to his senses. -William Makepeace Thakeray % I never loved another person the way I loved myself. -Mae West % I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. % I never thought that inorganic matter could attack a man. That's why I'm in such a panic -I've just seen proof it can! % I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket. -Lyndon B. Johnson % I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure. -Clarence Darrow % I never yet heard man or woman much abused that I was not inclined to think the better of them, and to transfer the suspicion or dislike to the one who found pleasure in pointing out the defects of another. -Jane Porter % I noticed that some household columns suggest that people use elbow grease for cleaning. After a long and fruitless search, I still have been unable to find this amazing product. Could you tell me where to buy it? % I once had a dog who, like you, insisted on being cheerful in the morning. I got rid of him by giving him to an immigrant Japanese family- and they ate him. % I once heard that Lewis's (department store) in Glasgow used to employ a "scapegoat". If a customer complained about anything, the department's manager would summon this guy and fire him on the spot. % I once taught a class which included a student named Georgina Secsauer. One day someone from the office popped in the door and asked 'Is there a Secsauer in this class?'. One of the students promptly responded 'Hell no! We don't even get a coffee break!' % I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. -Francis Bellamy, 1892 % I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow! % I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk. -John Huston % I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -William F. Buckley % I program, therefore I am. % I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment. % I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. -Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson % I question whether we can afford to teach mother macrame when Johnny still can't read. -Governor Jerry Brown % I quite agree with you, said the Duchess; and the moral of that is - `Be what you would seem to be' - or, if you'd like it put more simply - `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.' -Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland % 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 regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. -J. Edgar Hoover % I reject get-it-done, make-it-happen thinking. I want to slow things down so I understand them better. -Governor Jerry Brown % I remember those happy days and often wish I could speak into the ears of the dead the gratitude which was due to them in life and so ill-returned. -Gwyn Thomas % I said, beam me up dog breath! There is no life on this planet! % 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 see no wisdom in saving up indignation for a rainy day. -Heywood Broun % I see that fashion wears out more apparel than the man. -Shakespeare % I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, % I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. Bernoulli would have been content to die Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(phi)! -Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad % I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neighbors to the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about us; for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart. -Will Rogers % 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. -Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass % I shall never ask, never refuse, never resign nor ever not run for re-election. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation. -Dr. Albert Hoffman % I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us- a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole normal evolution of society. -Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University % I slept and drempt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I acted and beheld that duty was joy. -Rabindranath Tagore % I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass. -Senator Barry Goldwater, when asked what he thought of Jerry Falwell's suggestion that all good Christians should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court % I think he said 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.' Nonsense, he was obviously referring to all manafacturers of dairy products. -two people in the crowd in The Life of Brian % I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. -Oscar Wilde % I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. -Ogden Nash % I think that I shall never see A thing as lovely as a tree. But as you see the trees have gone They went this morning with the dawn. A logging firm from out of town Came and chopped the trees all down. But I will trick those dirty skunks And write a brand new poem called 'Stumps'. % I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not. But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am. -Monty Python % I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere. -James Thurber % I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my lifetime. -Johnny Legend % I think we should stop looking for issues to discuss. I think we should shut up and get to work. -Howard Chaykin % I think we're all Bozos on this bus. % I think. Therefore I am DANGEROUS. % I thought my window was down, but found out it was up when I put my hand through it. % I thought you were trying to get into shape. I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle. % I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat I found that I had a skull fracture. % I trust MY judgement. I'm not sure about yours. % I understand a fury in your words, but not your words. -Shakespeare % I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow. -Woodrow Wilson % I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure. % I used to be lost in the shuffle. Now I just shuffle along with the lost. % 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. from "Pirates of Penzance", by Gilbert & Sullivan) % I used to think the mind was the most important part of a person. Then I realized what part of me is telling me that. % I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you. -Ashleigh Brilliant % I waited and waited, and when nobody called, I knew it was from you. % 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 five years old before I realized there was no such thing as ALPO baby food. -Rodney Dangerfield % I was going to include an ethnic slur in here, but I couldn't figure out how to get you into this file. % I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. -Mark Twain % I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach. -Lucinda Childs (Philip Glass: Einstein On The Beach) % I was not born to be forced; I will breathe after my own fashion. -Henry David Thoreau % I was on my way to the doctors with rear-end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident. % I was playing poker the other night... with Tarot cards. I got a full house and 4 people died. -Steven Wright % I was poking around on my filesystem the other day, and discovered a directory named /vaporware. It was emtpy. % I was surprised to learn that many computer virus programs have copyright notices embedded in them. Applied to a computer virus, what could the concept of copyright possibly *mean*? % I was unable to stop in time and my car crashed into the other vehicle. The driver and passengers then left for a vacation with injuries. % I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be absent - not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to the point where it would not run at all. -George Greenstein, Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars % I went to the ophthalmologist today about an eye condition. To paraphrase his diagnosis, I had enough blood and sweat, but not enough tears. His suggestion was to stay off my eyes for a while. % 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 will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any suckling dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale. -Shakespeare % I will be building the ultimate RISC machine. I have reduced the instruction set to only two instructions: ON, OFF % I will fight it out at this line if it takes all summer. -General Ulysses S. Grant % I will never lie to you. -James E. Carter % I will not be as those who spend the day in complaining of the head-ache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives the headache. -Goethe % I will not drink! But if I do... I will not get drunk! But if I do... I will not in public! But if I do... I will not fall down! But if I do...I will fall face down so that they cannot see me. % I will not quarrel with a slight mistake, such as our nature's frailty may excuse. -Roscommon % I will roar, that it will do any man's heart good to hear me. -Shakespeare % 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 wish you humans would leave me alone. % I woke up and started folding my bed back into a couch and almost broke both my arms, because it's not one of those beds! -Steven Wright % I would call the Democratic Left in Latin America the group which secures social advances for all the people in a framework of freedom and consent. -Luis Munoz Marin % I would go so far as to suggest that, were it not for our ego and concern to be different, the African apes would be included in our family, the Hominidae. -Richard Leakey % I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. -Oliver North % I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarified to nothing by the pump of unbelief; in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath. -Richter % I would suggest the taxation of all property equally whether church or corporation. % I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. -Hunter S. Thompson % I write long epigrams, you write nothing. Yours are shorter. -Martial % I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. % I'd love to, but I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out. % I'd love to, but I did my own thing and now I've got to undo it. % I'd love to, but I don't want to leave my comfort zone. % I'd love to, but I feel a song coming on. % I'd love to, but I have some real hard words to look up in the dictionary. % I'd love to, but I have to answer all of my "occupant" letters. % I'd love to, but I have to be on the next train to Bermuda. % I'd love to, but I have to bleach my hare. % I'd love to, but I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. % I'd love to, but I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship. % I'd love to, but I have to floss my cat. % I'd love to, but I have to fluff my shower cap. % I'd love to, but I have to fulfill my potential. % I'd love to, but I have to go to court for kitty littering. % I'd love to, but I have to go to the post office to see if I'm still wanted. % I'd love to, but I have to jog my memory. % I'd love to, but I have to knit some dust bunnies for a charity bazaar. % I'd love to, but I have to rotate my crops. % I'd love to, but I have to sit up with a sick ant. % I'd love to, but I have to stay home and see if I snore. % I'd love to, but I have to study for a blood test. % I'd love to, but I have to thaw some karate chops for dinner. % I'd love to, but I have to wash/condition/perm/curl/tease/torment my hair. % I'd love to, but I have too much guilt. % I'd love to, but I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I can't put it down. % I'd love to, but I left my body in my other clothes. % I'd love to, but I made an appointment with a cuticle specialist. % I'd love to, but I never go out on days that end in "Y." % I'd love to, but I prefer to remain an enigma. % I'd love to, but I promised to help a friend fold road maps. % I'd love to, but I think you want the OTHER cookie. % I'd love to, but I want to spend more time with my blender. % I'd love to, but I'll be looking for a parking space. % I'd love to, but I'm attending a perfume convention as guest sniffer. % I'd love to, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door. % I'd love to, but I'm being deported. % I'd love to, but I'm building a pig from a kit. % I'd love to, but I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. % I'd love to, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. % I'd love to, but I'm enrolled in aerobic scream therapy. % I'd love to, but I'm getting my overalls overhauled. % I'd love to, but I'm giving nuisance lessons at a convenience store. % I'd love to, but I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. % I'd love to, but I'm going through cherry cheesecake withdrawl. % I'd love to, but I'm going to be old someday. % I'd love to, but I'm going to count the bristles in my toothbrush. % I'd love to, but I'm going to the Missing Persons Bureau to see if anyone is looking for me. % I'd love to, but I'm having all my plants neutered. % I'd love to, but I'm having my baby shoes bronzed. % I'd love to, but I'm in training to be a household pest. % I'd love to, but I'm making a home movie called "The Thing That Grew in My Refrigerator." % I'd love to, but I'm observing National Apathy Week. % I'd love to, but I'm planning to go downtown to try on gloves. % I'd love to, but I'm running off to Yugoslavia with a foreign-exchange student named Basil Metabolism. % I'd love to, but I'm sandblasting my oven. % I'd love to, but I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. % I'd love to, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving. % I'd love to, but I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. % I'd love to, but I'm too old/young for that stuff. % I'd love to, but I'm touring China with a wok band. % I'd love to, but I'm trying to be less popular. % I'd love to, but I'm trying to cut down. % I'd love to, but I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. % I'd love to, but I'm uncomfortable when I'm alone or with others. % I'd love to, but I'm up to my elbows in waxy buildup. % I'd love to, but I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner. % I'd love to, but I'm worried about my vertical hold. % I'd love to, but I'm writing a love letter to Richard Simmons. % I'd love to, but I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. % I'd love to, but I've been traded to Cincinnati. % I'd love to, but I've come down with a really horrible case of something or other. % I'd love to, but I've dedicated my life to linguini. % I'd love to, but I've got a Friends of Rutabaga meeting. % I'd love to, but for me. % I'd love to, but having fun gives me prickly heat. % I'd love to, but it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. % I'd love to, but it's my parakeet's bowling night. % I'd love to, but it's too close to the turn of the century. % I'd love to, but my Dress For Obscurity class meets then. % I'd love to, but my Millard Filmore Fan Club meets then. % I'd love to, but my bathroom tiles need grouting. % I'd love to, but my chocolate-appreciation class meets that night. % I'd love to, but my crayons all melted together. % I'd love to, but my favorite commercial is on TV. % I'd love to, but my mother would never let me hear the end of it. % I'd love to, but my palm reader advised against it. % I'd love to, but my patent is pending. % I'd love to, but my plot to take over the world is thickening. % I'd love to, but my subconscious says no. % I'd love to, but my uncle escaped again. % I'd love to, but my yucca plant is feeling yucky. % I'd love to, but none of my socks match. % I'd love to, but people are blaming me for the Spanish-American War. % I'd love to, but the President said he might drop in. % I'd love to, but the grunion are running. % I'd love to, but the last time I went out, I never came back. % I'd love to, but the man on television told me to say tuned. % I'd love to, but the monsters haven't turned blue yet, and I have to eat more dots. % I'd love to, but there are important world issues that need worrying about. % I'd love to, but there's a disturbance in the Force. % I'd love to, but you know how we psychos are. % I'd never marry a woman who didn't like pizza. I might play golf with her, but I wouldn't marry her. % I'd rather go whoring than warring. -Bill Gray % I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. % I'll grant the random access to my heart, Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove And in our bound partition never part. -Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad % I'll pick up my papers, and smile at the sky. I know that the hypnotized never lie. % I'll speak to it through hell itself should gape, and bid me hold my peace. -Shakespeare % I'm #1! Why try harder? % I'm N-ary the tree, I am, N-ary the tree, I am, I am. I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, She's traversed me seven times before. And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. N-ary the tree I am, I am, N-ary the tree I am. % I'm PROUD to be a CARBON-BASED life form! % I'm a Hollywood writer; so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain. % I'm a Lisp variable - bind me! % I'm a clown. That's my sole mechanism of defense. Very few people will go out of their way to punish a clown. % I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from man. % I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK, I sleeps all night and I work all day. % I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister. % I'm always easy. I'm NEVER cheap!!! -Dick Munroe % I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did. % I'm dreaming of an ascii character-based monochrome Christmas, Just like the one's I used to know! Via a full duplex communications channel, At 9600 bits per second, Even though it's kinda slow. - I'm dreaming of an ascii character-based monochrome Christmas, With ev'ry C program I write! May your screen be merry and bright! And may all your Christmases be amber or green, (for reduced eyestrain and improved visibility) % I'm examining the major Western religions. I'm looking for something that's soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a short initiation period." % 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 get a tatoo over my WHOLE BODY ... of ME, but TALLER! -Steven Wright % I'm going to get you for this, Croll! -John Holz % I'm growing older, but not up. -Jimmy Buffett % I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here? -Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate % I'm no longer prepared to accept what people say and what's written in books, I must think things out for myself, and try to find my own answer. -Ibsen % I'm no one's trophy!!! -Constance Barr % I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence?" I give the standard arguments- there are a lot of places out there, and use the word "billions," and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you really think?" I say, I just told you what I really think. "Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?" "But I try not to think with my gut." Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. -Carl Sagan % I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. % I'm pretty good with BS but I love listening to an expert. Keep talking. % 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 rich and you aren't, so there! -J. Pierpont Flathead, Bank of Zork % I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General. -Gilbert & Sullivan, Pirates of Penzance % 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 finally figured out why airports make you walk so far out to get to your plane. It's their way of giving your luggage a head start. % I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes. -Dennie Van Tassel % 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 got tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed crying over you. % I've had one child. My husband wants to have another. I'd like to watch him have another. % I've heard old cunning stagers Say fools for arguments use wagers. -Butler % I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child - sometimes on the same day. % I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. -Mike Todd % I've never known an instance in the history of our company where an executive unloaded responsibilities and duties on one lower in the ranks, that he did not find himself immediately loaded from above with greater responsibility. -Arthur F. Hall % I've really got into astronomy lately. So much so that I have installed a skylight in my ceiling. This really upsets the people that live above me. -Steven Wright % I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer. % I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head -George Wallace % I've spent a fortune on my kids' education, and a fortune on their teeth. The difference is, they use their teeth. -Robert Orben % I've steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist. % I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting. I shall fall, Like a bright exhalation in the evening And no man see me more. -Shakespeare % I've trained my dog to salivate whenever Pavlov comes over for tea. % IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. % IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' to destroy the competition... IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches the pot, he falls into the pit. -John C. Dvorak % IF(UNDERSTAND .EQ. .TRUE.) THEN FORTPROGJOB=POSIBLE ENDIF % IMPORTANT NOTICE TO USERS OF THIS COMPUTER. Limitation to any guarantee, expressed or implied: The Entire physical universe, including this product, may one day collapse back into an infinitesimally small space. Should another universe subsequently re-emerge, the existence of this product in that universe is not gauranteed. % IRS HUMOR EXAMPLE A: A lawyer, a doctor and a priest were marooned on a desert island. So we confiscated their homes. IRS HUMOR EXAMPLE B: What do you get when you cross Zsa Zsa Gabor with a kanagaroo? I don't know, but let's confiscate its home. -Dave Barry % Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds. % Ideal goals grow faster than the means of attaining new goals allow. -Mallory Wober % Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like solitary confinement. % Idiot Box: 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: 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 % Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments, which is why we need a productivity rebate. -Poor Jimmy's Almanac % Idleness is the holiday of fools. % Idleness travels very slowly, and poverty soon overtakes her. -Hunter % If "everybody knows" such and such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one. % If (you_understand_this == 1) { C.programmer.job = posibility; } % If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -Roy Santoro % 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 Europe should ever be ruined, it will be by its warriors. -Montesquieu % If God had intended Man to program, we would be born with serial I/O ports. % If God had intended Man to smoke, He would have put chimneys on our heads. % If God had intended Man to smoke, He would have set him on fire. % If God had intended Man to watch TV, He would have given him rabbit ears. % 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 really intended men to fly, He'd have made it easier to get to the airport. -George Winters % If God had wanted man to fly, He would have given him airline tickets. % If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles. % 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 shuts one door, he opens another. % 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 can catch him once upon the hip I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. -Shakespeare % If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! -Samuel Goldwyn % If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again. If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much; But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn. -Dorothy Parker % If I don't know your name, how am I supposed to tell my diary about you? % 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 I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants. -Sir Isaac Newton % If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction. On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction. The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly. The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. -Dolph Sharp, I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot % If I may venture my own definition of a folk song, I should call it "an individual flowering on a common stem." -Ralph Vaughan Williams % If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell. -Sheridan % If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot's at the other end. -Bert Whitney % If I want your opinion, I'll ask you to fill out the necessary form. % If I were going to create a New Universe, I'd rest on the seventh day. -Jack Kirby % If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers. -Frederick the Great % 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 Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up. -Hannah and Her Sisters % If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn't see his feet, we'll have 6 more weeks of Pro football. -Chuck Newcombe % If Mother Nature doesn't make mistakes then why does dessert taste better than dinner? % If Negro freedom is taken away, or that of any minority group, the freedom of all the people is taken away. -Paul Robeson % If Noah had consulted with modern-day weather forecasters, there would have been a ten-percent chance of him building the ark. -Jim Fiebig % If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation. % If Reagan is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. % If Tarzan was Jewish, and Jane was a princess, what would Cheetah be? A fur coat. % If Unix is so damn useful, why is "no" in /usr/dict/words, but "yes" isn't? % If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. % If a ball rims the cup, it is deemed to have dropped. A ball should not go sideways. This violates the laws of physics. -Donald A. Metz % If a ball stops at the brink of the hole and hangs there, defying gravity, it is deemed to have dropped. You can't defy the law of gravity. -Donald A. Metz % If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus forecast is a camel's behind. -Edgar R. Fiedler % If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child. % If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself. -Dorothy Law Nolte % If a course requires a prerequisite, a student will not have had it. -M. M. Johnston % If a generalist delights to find a law he is ecstatic when he finds a law about laws. If laws in his eyes are good, laws about laws are delicious and are most praiseworthy objects of search. -Boulding % If a great deal of time has been expended seeking the answer to a problem, with the only result being failure, the answer will be immediately obvious to the first unqualified person who comes along. % 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 man chooses to do evil... it becomes my sacred duty to bash him to a pulp. % If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings, and the widow weeps. -Shakespeare % If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away. -Henry David Thoreau % If a man does not make new acquaintances, as he advances through life, he soon will find himself alone. A man should keep his friendship in constant repair. -Johnson % If a man is happy in his work, exerting himself to the full extent of his capabilities, and enjoying it, I'd say he's a success. -William Romain % If a man wants to borrow trouble, he never needs collateral. % If a man will go as far as he can see, he will be able to see farther when he gets there. % If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, and learning, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! -Jonathon Swift % If a person (a) is sick, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. -Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble % If a political candidate chooses to go into specifics on a program that affects a voter's self-interest, the voter get interested. If the proposal involves money, he gets very interested. -Stuart Spencer % If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of gravity supercedes the law of golf. -Donald A. Metz % If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well. % If a student has to study, he will claim that the course is unfair. -M. M. Johnston % If a taxpayer thinks he can cheat safely, he probably will. -Diogenes % If a thing cannot be fitted into something smaller than itself some dope will do it. -Eric Frank Russell % If a thing is done wrong often enough, it becomes right. -Richard A. Leahy % If a town has one lawyer, he starves; if it has two lawyers, they both get rich. % If a train station is where a train stops, then what's a workstation? % If a woman attended an American high school between 1930 and 1965, chances are that no one paid attention to anything but her brains unless she took the utmost care to conceal them. -Susan Jacoby % If all I'm offered is a choice between monopolistic privilege with regulation and monopolistic privilege without regulation, I'm afraid I have to opt for the former. -Nicholas Johnson % If all be true that I do think, There be Five Reasons why one should Drink; Good friends, good wine, or being dry, Or lest we should be by-and-by, Or any other reason why. % If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -John Kenneth Galbraith % If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart. -Socrates % 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 people in this world in which we live were as selfish as a few of the people in this world in which we live, there would be no world in which to live. -W. L. Orme % 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. % 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 an S and an I and an O and a U With an X at the end spell Su; And an E and a Y and an E spell I, Pray what is a speller to do? Then, if also an S and an I and a G And an HED spell side, There's nothing much left for a speller to do But to go commit siouxeyesighed. -Charles Follen Adams, An Orthographic Lament % If an apparently severe problem manifests itself, no solution is acceptable unless it is involved, expensive, and time-consuming. % If an author write better than his contemporariee healing dew? -Alexander Pope % If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. -James 1:5,6 % If anything can go wrong, it will. Corollary: If anything just can't go wrong, it will anyway. -Francis P. Chisholm % If at first you don't succeed that is only to be expected- there is a little bit of good even in the best of us. (No one is as good as he thinks he is.) % If at first you don't succeed, blame it on the teacher. -Stacey Bass % If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. % If at first you don't succeed, stand on your head and eat an aligator liver. Aligator liver has the strange effect of making it all seem so profoundly hopeless that you just don't care anymore. -Ambidextrous Rex % If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set. % If at first you don't succeed, try something else. -Laurance J. Peter % If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, then quit and get tanked. -Steve Dallas % If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. -W. C. Fields % If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average. % If at first you don't succeed, you must be doing something wrong. -Charles Merrill Smith % If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as plentiful as blackberries. -Leslie Stephen % If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? % If beauty is only skin deep, you must have been born inside out. % If both Alsops say it's true, it can't be so. -John Kenneth Galbraith % If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. -Gerald Weinberg % If cats always land on their feet, and bread always lands butter side down, what happens if you butter your bread and staple it to a cat? % If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that will do them in. % If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television? % If enough reports are prepared and technical reviews are held, negative information will always filter its way to senior management. -Richard F. Moore % If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? % If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. % If everything seems to be going well, then you obviously don't know what the hell is going on. % If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. % If facts do not conform to theory, they must be disposed of. -N. R. F. Maier % If for every rule there is an exception, then we have established that there is an exception to every rule. If we accept "For every rule there is an exception" as a rule, then we must concede that there may not be an exception after all, since the rule states that there is always the possibility of exception, and if we follow it to its logical end we must agree that there can be an exception to the rule that for every rule there is an exception. -Bill Boquist % 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 good intentions are combined with stupidity, it is impossible to outthink them. -Marion J. Levy, Jr. % If he had been born God, it was the clowns who would occupy the lowest rungs of hell. % If he had two ideas in his head, they would fall out with each other. -Johnson % If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience. % If humanity profits from its mistakes, we have a glorious future coming up. % If hyperspace did not already exist, science fiction writers would have had to invent it -Peter Oakley % If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? % If imprinted foil seal under cap is broken or missing when purchased, do not use. % If it ain't broke, don't fix it. -Bert Lantz % If it can be borrowed and it can be broken, you will borrow it and you will break it. -W. W. Chandler % If it can be understood, it's not finished yet. -Paul Herbig % If it can break, it will, but only after the warranty expires. -Sherry Graditor % If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. -Lazarus Long % If it is generally known what one is supposed to be doing, then someone will expect him to do it. -Merle P. Martin % If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. % If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. % If it tastes good, you can't have it. If it tastes awful, you'd better clean your plate. % If it works well, they'll stop making it. % If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. % If it's working, the diagnostics say it's fine. If it's not working, the diagnostics say it's fine. -A proposed addition to rules for realtime programming % If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted; musicians denoted; cowboys deranged; models deposed; tree surgeons debarked and dry cleaners depressed? -Virginia Ostman % If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. % If life were a bed of roses, some people wouldn't be happy until they developed an allergy. % 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 love makes the world go 'round, Why are we going to outer space? -Margaret Gilman % If man were meant to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles. % If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number. % If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. % If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. % If most people are right-handed, why are all neutrinos left-handed? It's a safety feature to keep kids from opening them. % If no one uses something, it isn't needed. -Robert Sommer % If nobody uses it, there's a reason. -Jane Bryant Quinn % If nuclear, therefore it must be bad; Denounce such power with a protest squeal. The scientists made it (surely they're all mad), It's better not to think and just to feel. -Jack Kirwan % If on an actuarial basis there is a 50/50 chance that something will go wrong, it actually will go wrong nine times in ten. % If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and superficial answer is not far to seek. The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival denomination would get an unfair advantage. -John Dewey % If one is lucky enough and can accurately define all three of these parameters, task, time, and resources, then what one deals with is not the realm of R&D. % If one knows what the task is, and there is a time limit allowed for the completion of the task, then one cannot guess how much it will cost. % If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. -Montesquieu % If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants. -Albert Einstein % If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest of them have to drown too? % If one word does not succeed, ten thousand are of no avail. % If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. -Woody Allen % 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 only one parking space is available it will have a blue curb (blue curbs are reserved for "STAFF"). -M. M. Johnston % If our standard of living gets much higher, most of us won't be able to afford it. % If pro is the opposite of con then what is the opposite of progress. % If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use; but ir is make use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything solemn and serious. -Addison % If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future. -Carl Sagan % If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. -Vannevar Bush % If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on vacation. % If some stress is brought to bear on a system in equilibrium, the equilibrium is displaced in the direction which tends to undo the effect of the stress. % If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. -Pope John Paul I % If someone says he will do something without fail, he won't. % If someone with a rural accent says, "I don't know anything about politics," zip up your pockets. -Donald Rumsfeld % If something goes wrong, it is more important to talk about who is going to fix it, than who is to blame. -Francis J. Gable % If something's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well. % If that's art, I'm a Hottentot! -Harry S. Truman % 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 aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -Stanley Garn % If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good. -Robert E. Machol % If the average man is made in God's image, then such a man as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God. % If the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world. -Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days % If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. -Norm Schryer % If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. -Ralph Waldo Emerson % If the converse of a statement is absurd, the original statement is an insult to the intelligence and should never have been said. -Arthur H. Boultbee (This is best applied to the statements of politicians and TV pundits.) % If the dove chooses to fly with the hawks his feathers stay white but his heart turns black. % If the enterprise dies, say that you saw it coming ages ago. -Jean-Charles Terrassier % If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. % If the meek shall inherit the Earth, what will happen to us Tigers? -Hobbes % If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails will be filled with good people. -Daniel P. Monynihan % If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. % If the people are to be the governors, who then shall be the governed? -Cotton Mather, leader of the Salem Witch-hunts % If the people in a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy. -Snell Putney % If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of a circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity. -Samuel F. B. Morse % If the product being advertised is so great, why is it always compared to the leading brand? % If the time and resources ($) are clearly defined, then it is impossible to know what part of the R&D task will be performed. % If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will exceed all expectations. -Reverend Chichester % If the wicked flourish, and thou suffer, be not discouraged. They are fatted for destruction: thou are dieted for health. -Fuller % If the work of God could be comprehended by reason, it would be no longer wonderful. % If the world like it not, so much the worse for them. -Cowper % If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. % If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown. -Adam Walinsky % If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway. % If there is a 50-50 chance that something can go wrong, then 9 times out of ten it will. -Paul Harvey News, 1979 % If there is a wrong thing to say, one will. -Betty Hartig % If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later the mistake will be made. -Edmund C. Berkeley % If there is any way to do it wrong, you will. % If there is anything education does not lack today, it is critics. -Nathan M. Pusey % If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -Art Hoppe If this saying did not exist, somebody would have invented it. % If there is no reason why something shouldn't exist, then it must exist. -Murray Gell-Martin % If there isn't a law, there will be. -Harold Faber % If things are not going well with you, begin your effort at correcting the situation by carefully examining the service you are rendering, and especially the spirit in which you are rendering it. -Roger Babson % If things can go wrong, they will- and when they do, blame it on the oil industry. % If things were left to chance, they'd be better. % If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. % If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. % If this makes any sense to you, you have a big problem. % If thou art a master, be sometimes blind; if a servant, sometimes deaf. -Fuller % If thou hast a loitering servant, send him of thy errand just before his dinner. -Fuller % If time heals all wounds, how come bellybuttons don't fill in? % 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 truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? -Lily Tomlin % 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 ugly was labor, you'd be a long day's work. % If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely % If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -Longfellow % If we did not take great pains, and were not at great expense to corrupt our nature, our nature would never corrupt us. -Lord Clarendon % If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. % If we had no defects ourselves, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others. -La Rochefoucauld % If we in business cannot put the brakes on this creeping socialism, the free enterprise system will become a thing of the past. -Barton A, Cummings % If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitiable. -John F. Kennedy % If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage. % If we weren't supposed to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three to a can. % 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 accept the necessity for freedom of expression, it follows that in an intellectual controversy any attempt to coerce rather than to persuade ... is not merely an offense against the person so coerced, but an erosion of the mechanics which make free expression work, and therefore make it possible. -Micheal Kinsley % If you add only a little to a little and do this often, soon that little will become great. -Hesiod % If you always postpone pleasure you will never have it. Quit work and play for once. % If you anticipate bus delays by leaving your house thirty minutes early, your bus will arrive as soon as you reach the bus stop or when you light up a cigarette, whichever comes first. -John Corcoran % If you are brave too often, people will come to expect it of you. -Mignon McLaughlin % If you are concerned about being criticized, you're in the wrong job. However you vote, and whatever you do, somebody will be out there telling you that you are: (a) wrong, (b) insensitive, (c) a bleeding heart, (d) a pawn of somebody else, (e) too wishy-washy, (f) too unwilling to compromise, (g) all of the above. Consistency is not required of critics. -Pierre S. du Pont % If you are given a clearly defined R&D goal and a definite amount of money which has been calculated to be necessary for the completion of the task, one cannot predict if and when the goal will be reached. % If you are to understand others, and have them understand you, know the big words but use the small ones. % If you believe in gambling, in the end you will sell your spouse. % If you break a cup or plate, it will not be the one that was already chipped or cracked. -Denys Parsons % If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. -Abraham Lincoln % If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. -J. Paul Getty % If you can get others to believe your crap, you will be successful, but if you believe it yourself you are in trouble. % If you can give your son only one gift, let it be enthusiasm. -Bruce Barton % If you can keep your head when all about you others are losing theirs, maybe you just don't understand the situation. % 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 remember to say 'Alzheimers' every day, then you haven't got it. % If you can see it and it's there, it's real. If you can't see it and it's there, it's transparent. If you can see it and it's not there, it's virtual. If you can't see it and it's not there, it's been deleted. % If you can see it and it's there, then it's real. If you can see it and it's not there, then it's virtual. If you can't see it and it's there, then it's transparent. If you can't see it and it's not there, then you erased it. -An IBM ad % 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 beat them, have them join you. -Charles Wolf, Jr. % If you can't debug it, deplug it. % If you can't do anything about something, pretend it doesn't exist. % If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. -Ashleigh Brilliant % If you can't measure it, I'm not interested. -Lawrence J. Peter % If you can't remember it, it couldn't have been important. -Larry Groebe % If you can't understand it, it must be intuitively obvious. Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. The only perfect science is hindsight. Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. All great discoveries are made by mistake. All's well that ends. % If you can't win, make the one ahead of you break a record. % If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -Harry S Truman % If you cannot hope for order, withdraw with style from the chaos. -Stoppard % If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself- all that runs over the brim will be yours. -Colton % If you continually give you will continually have. % If you cover a congressional committee on a regular basis, they will report the bill on your day off. -Herb Foster % If you destroy delicacy and a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast. -Mrs. Stowe % If you develop rules, never have more than ten. -Donald Rumsfeld % If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? % If you disregard the advice of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and go into the quicksand of an Asian country, like a domino you will fall into the quicksand of another Asian country next to it. -Andrew Jacobs % If you don't find it in the Index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue. -"Consumer's Guide", Sears, Roebuck and Co. (1897) % If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours. -Clarence Day % If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it. -Dijkstra % If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. -Charles C. Abbott % If you don't like the way we eat, you'd better not come to the table. -Jason, The Sound and the Fury % If you don't like the weather in New England, wait fifteen minutes; it will change. -Mark Twain % If you don't like the weather, move. % If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. % If you don't say it, they can't repeat it. -Wilbur C. Munnecke % If you don't watch it, you're going to catch something. % If you eat a live toad in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either of you for the rest of the day. % If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. % If you gave to forecast, forecast often. -Edgar R. Fiedler % If you get penalized for excessive celebration for a TD that is reversed by replay review, does the penalty still count? % 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 a trip taking two bags with you, one containing everything you need for the trip and the other containing absolutely nothing, the second bag will be completely filled with junk acquired on the trip when you return. -Tony Hogg % 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 had your life to live over again - you'd need more money. % If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. % If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong. -Charles F. Kettering % If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. % If you have something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it for you. -Clyde F. Adams % If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. -Charles C. Abbott % If you have to hate, hate gently. % If you have to scream, you're not doing it right. -Billy Martin % If you have to think about it, it's too late. % If you have too many problems, maybe you should go out of business. There is no law that says a company must last forever. % If you jot down every silly thought that pops into your mind, you will soon find out everything you most seriously believe. -Mignon McLaughlin % 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 lend a person any money, it becomes lost for any purposes of your own. When you ask for it back again, you find a friend made an enemy by your own kindness. If you begin to press still further- either you must part with that which you have intrusted, or else you must lose that friend. -Plautus % If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. -Graham Summer % If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich or famous or both. -James C. Hagerty % If you make a mistake cover all traces of the fact immediately. % If you make a mistake you right it immediately to the best of your ability. % If you make any money, the government will shove you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep. -Will Rogers % If you make it possible for programmers to write in English you will find the programmers don't know English. % If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil. -Fielding % 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 meet somebody who tells you that he loves you more than anybody in the whole wide world, don't trust him. It means he experiments. % If you need a physician, employ these three: a cheerful mind, rest, and a temperate diet. % 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 play with something long enough, you will surely break it. -Louis Zahner % 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. -Pierre Gallois % If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always depend on the support of Paul. (But don't bet on it.) % If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life. -Henry David Thoreau % If you smoke on the premises, we shall assume you are on fire and treat you accordingly... % If you stop to think about it, you're already dead. % If you submit your paper to a second editor, his journal invariably demands an entirely different reference system. -Maeve O'Conner % If you suspect a man, don't employ him. % If you take off your right-hand glove in very cold weather, the key will be in your left-hand pocket. % If you take pleasure in criticism, it's time to hold your tongue. % If you take your boots off, you'll never get them back on again. -Milt Barber % If you tell the truth, you must smile. Otherwise, people will kill you. % If you think before you speak then the other guy gets his joke in first. % 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 United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? -Richard M. Nixon % If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it. -Arthur Kasspe % If you think this is funny, look in a mirror. % If you think you have enemies, then, dear simpleton, you will have enemies. % If you think you have someone eating out of your hand, it's a good idea to count your fingers. % If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year. What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ... If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ... % If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to the moon and back... and none of them would be complaining. % If you try to please everybody, somebody is not going to like it. -Donald Rumsfeld % If you want a track team that will win the high jump, you find one person who can jump seven feet, not seven people who can jump one foot. -Frederick E. Terman % If you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends let others excel you. -Colton % If you want something done, ask a busy person. % If you want to eat hippopautamus, you've got to pay the freight. -some IBM guy % If you want to get along, go along. -Sam Rayburn % If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it. -Charles F. Kettering % If you want to make an enemy, do someone a favor. -Charles L. Geanangel % If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National." -George Will % If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep. % If you want your name spelled wrong, die. -Al Blanchard % 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 were a mushroom, why would people always be inviting you to parties? Because you'd be a real fun gi. % If you were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere. -Sam Spade % If you were to ask me this question, what would my answer be? % If you wish peace, work for justice. -Pope Paul VI % If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings - including this one. % If you wish to make a superior product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior product. -Jacob A. Varela % If you wish to succeed, consult three old people. Then do the oposite. % If you wish to, you will have a good opportunity to get even. % If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams- the more they are condensed the deeper they burn. -Southey % If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. % If you write a book entitled "How to Fail" and it doesn't sell, is it a success? If it sells is it a failure? % If you write the word "monkey" a million times, do you start to think you're shakespeare? % If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee. - broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, Eagle, to Johnson Space Center, Houston % If you're already in a hole, there's no use to continue digging. -Roy W. Walters % If you're coasting, you're going downhill. -L. R. Pierson % If you're confident after you've just finished an exam, it's because you don't know enough to know better. -Jay Weisman % If you're ever right, never let 'em forget it. -Edgar R. Riedler % If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. % 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 Grand Canyon, you've seen them all. -a member of the Monkey Wrench Gang % If you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all. -Spiro Agnew % If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. -Ronald Reagan % If your desires are not extravagant they will be granted. % If your doing something the same way you have been doing it for ten years, the chances are you are doing it wrong. -Charles Kettering % If your friend won't lend you fifty dollars, he's probably a close friend. % If your next pot of chili tastes better, it probably is because of something you left out. % If your parents didn't have any children, the odds are that you won't have any. -Clarence Day % If your stomach disputes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. -Satchel Paige % If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl. -H. L. Mencken % Ignorance is no excuse. % Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. % Ignorance of one's ignorance is the greatest ignorance. % Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex, Et le m^omerade horgrave. -Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass % 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. % Illegetimus non carborundum! % Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot - it's more like the land He's trying to ignore. % Imagination is more important than knowledge. % Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will. -George Bernard Shaw % Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -Jules de Gaultier % Imagine if birds were tickled by feathers. You'd see a flock of birds come by, laughing hysterically! % Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, 8 gigabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What's the first question that the computer community asks? "Is it PC compatible?" % Imagine the appeals, Dissents and remandments, If lawyers had written The Ten Commandments % Imitation is the sincerest form of plagarism. % Immodest words admit of no defence For want of decency is want of sense. -Alexander Pope % Immortality - a fate worse than death. -Edgar A. Shoaff % Impartial: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary % Impatience dires the blood sooner than age or sorrow. -Creon % Impiety: Your irreverence toward my deity. -Ambrose Bierce % 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. % Important note: The Anti-Social Committee will not be meeting this week. % Important things that are supposed to happen do not happen, especially when people are looking. -Charles Fetridge % Imports are ports very far inland. % Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools. -Napoleon Bonaparte % Impropriety is the soul of wit. -Somerset Maugham % 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 1950 the cheapest computers cost the same as the most expensive Rolls Royce. If both had developed at the same rate the Rolls would: * cost $5.00 * get 2,000 miles per gallon * go from 0 to 60 in .02 seconds * have a top speed of 900 miles per hour % 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 everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards. -Bertrand Russell % In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one of the risks he takes. -Adlai Stevenson % 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 Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride in any motor vehicle. % In Cupertino, California, it is illegal to count backwards audibly in hexadecimal. % 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 Fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels or successful butchers of the human race. -Zimmermam % In God we trust, all others pay cash. % In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks when a concert is on. % In India, cold weather is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. -Mark Twain % In Israel, there's no legal way for a man named Cohen to marry a divorced woman. % In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. % 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 Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public view." % In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our symptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face. -Stanislaw Lem, Cyberiad % In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length. % In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile. % In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without the supervision of a licensed engineer. % In a Bangkok dry cleaner's: Drop your trousers here for best results. % In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man. % In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order. % In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. % In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions. % In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours -- we guarantee no miscarriages. % In a Democracy only those laws which have their bases in folkways or the approval of strong groups have a chance of being enforced. -Abraham Myerson % In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service. % In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid. In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub. % In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up. % In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar. % In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk. % In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation. % In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time. % In a Russian tragedy, everybody dies. In a Russian comedy, everybody dies too. But they die happy. % In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today - no ice cream. % In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis. % In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts. % In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run. % In a Vienna hotel: In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter. % In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. % In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose. % In a bureaucracy accomplishment is inversely proportional to volume of paper used. -Foster L. Fowler % In a bureaucracy every routing slip will expand until it contains the maximum number of names that can be typed in a vertical column, namely, twenty-seven. -Daniel Melcher % In a bureaucratic system an increase in expenditure will be matched by a fall in production. Such systems will act rather like "black holes" in the economic universe, simultaneously sucking in resources and shrinking in terms of "emitted" production. -Dr. Max Gammon % In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work. -Milton Friedman % In a country as big as the United States, you can find fifty examples of anything. -Jeffery F. Chamberlain % In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, most people will choose the worst one possible. -S. A. Rudin % In a democracy you can be respected though poor, but don't count on it. -Charles Merrill Smith % In a family argument, if it turns out you are right, apologize at once! -Lazarus Long % In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that is would take a man many months to equal it. % 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 future life, may you come back as yourself. % In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion. % In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily. % In a literature class, the students were given an assignment to write a short story involving all the important ingredients - Nobility, Emotion, Sex, Religion and Mystery. One student allegedly handed in the following story: "My god!" cried the duchess. "I'm pregnant. Who did it?" % In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master." -Lazarus Long % 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 a research and development orbit, only two of the existing three parameters can be defined simultaneously. The parameters are: task, time, and resources. % In a restaurant with seats which are close to each other, one will always find the decibel level of the nearest conversation to be inversely proportional to the quality of the thought going into it. -Stuart A. Cohn % In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame, because the materials are always prepared for it. -Hume % In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yet, it is women who keep the church going. % In all the many-colored worlds of the universe no single ethical code shows a universal force. I am convinced that virtue is but a reflection of good intent. -Magnus Ridolf % In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here. % In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension. % In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers. % In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists. % In an attempt to kill a fly I drove into a telephone pole. % In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetency. -The Peter Principle % In an underdeveloped country, don't drink the water; in a developed country, don't breathe the air. % In an underdeveloped country, when you are absent, your job is taken away from you; in a developed country a new one is piled on you. -Professor Charles P. Issawi % In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct will contain errors. % In any decision situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision. -Michael T. Minerath % In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. % In any given group, the most will do the least and the least the most. -Merle P. Martin % In any given miscalculation, the fault will never be placed if more than one person is involved. -Merle P. Martin % In any household, junk accumulates to fill the space available for its storage. -Bruce O. Boston % In any human enterprise, work seeks the lowest hierarchical level. -Charles R. Vail % In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. % In any slide presentation, at least one slide will be upside down or backwards, or both. -John Corcoran % In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with the most popular of all neuro-mythologies- the notion that we ordinarily use only 10 percent of our brains. This cerebral spare tire concept continues to nourish the clientele of pop psychologists and their many recycling self-improvement schemes. As a metaphor for the fact that few of us fully exploit our talents, who could deny it? As a refuge for occultists seeking a neural basis of the miraculous, it leaves much to be desired. -Barry L. Beyerstein % In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, for even tho' vanquish'd he could argue still. -Oliver Goldsmith % In briefings to busy people, summarize at the beginning what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then summarize at the end what you have told them. -Charles Wolf, Jr. % In business, price increases as service declines. -James L. Davis % In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools will be temporarily canceled. % In case of doubt- make it sound convincing. % In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and make it better. % In case of nuclear attack: 1) Stand with feet shoulder width apart. 2) Bend over to a 90 degree angle. 3) Face backwards. 4) Kiss your ass goodbye. % In dealing with people, an ounce of sincere, good intentions is worth a pound of cleverness. % In dealing with the press do yourself a favor. Stick with one of three responses: (a) I know and I can tell you. (b) I know and I can't tell you. (c) I don't know. -Dan Rather % In dealing with their own problems, faculty members are the most extreme conservatives. In dealing with other people's problems, they are the world's extreme liberals. -Clark Kerr % In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable. -Winston Curchill, of Montgomery % In differing breasts what differing passions glow! Ours kindle quick, but yours extinguish slow. -Garth % In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. -Thomas Jefferson % In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence; every post tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties. -Laurance J. Peter % In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. % In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat: but in the evolution of real knowledge, it marks the first step in progress toward victory. -Alfred North Whitehead % In handling a stinging insect, move very slowly. -Lazarus Long % In his book titled "Quick C", Al Stevens gives us a quick rundown on the origin, purpose and usefulness of so many programming languages. COBOL was designed so that managers could read code. BASIC was designed for people who are not programmers. FORTRAN is for scientists. ADA comes from a committee - a government committee no less. PILOT is for teachers. PASCAL is for students. LOGO is for children APL is for martians. FORTH, LISP and PROLOG are specialty languages. C, however, is for programmers. % In his private heart no man much respects himself. -Mark Twain % In jealousy there is more self-love than love. % In larger things we are convivial; What causes trouble is the trivial. -Richard Armour % In life there is but one bad thing and one good; both of them are women. % In lover's quarrels, the party that loves most is always most willing to acknowledge the greater fault. -Scott % In matters of dispute, the bank's balance is always smaller than yours. -Rozanne Weissman % In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. -Thomas Jefferson % In me thou see'st the twilight of such day, the glowing of such fire.