Top 3000 qoutes

Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank. ~Ben Irwin

If you wait, all that happens is that you get older. ~Larry McMurtry, Some Can Whistle

When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you've got plenty to watch. ~Author unknown, from a television commercial

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life. ~Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured, 1927

Our time consumes like smoke, and posts away;

Nor can we treasure up a month or day:

The sand within the transitory glass

Doth haste, and so our silent minutes pass.

~Rowland Watkyns

If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart. ~Edmund Wilson

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. ~Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

The word "now" is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks. ~Arthur Miller, After the Fall, 1964

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself. ~George Bernard Shaw

The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked. ~Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live. ~Jean Cocteau

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice. ~Indian Saying

Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear. ~Author Unknown

Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got. ~Art Buchwald

If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance. ~Andrea Boydston

though love be a day and life be nothing, it shall not stop kissing. ~e.e. cummings

There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love, -

There is only one To-day.

~Joaquin Miller

Life is always walking up to us and saying, "Come on in, the living's fine," and what do we do? Back off and take its picture. ~Russell Baker

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;

Improve each moment as it flies!

Life's a short summer, man a flower;

He dies - alas! how soon he dies!

~Samuel Johnson

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

To-morrow - oh, 'twill never be,

If we should live a thousand years!

Our time is all to-day, to-day,

The same, though changed; and while it flies

With still small voice the moments say:

"To-day, to-day, be wise, be wise.

~James Montgomery, To-day

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ~Diane Ackerman

Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. ~Dion Boucicault

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

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. ~Mark Twain

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember you must die whether you sit about moping all day long or whether on feast days you stretch out in a green field, happy with a bottle of Falernian from your innermost cellar. ~Horace

Time wears all his locks before;

Take thy hold upon his forehead;

When he flies, he turns no more,

And behind his scalp is naked.

~Robert Southwell

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it. ~Jonathan Swift

Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain. ~William Hazlitt, On the Love of Life, 1815

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness. ~Jean de La Bruyère

Is there life before death? ~Author Unknown

It's a mere moment in a man's life between an All-Star Game and an Old-timers' Game. ~Vin Scully

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

~William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1600

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough. ~Maurice Maeterlinck, Wisdom and Destiny, 1901, translated by Alfred Sutro

When it comes time to die, make sure all you got to do is die. ~Attributed to Jim Elliot

I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace. ~Henry James

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. ~Samuel Johnson

Expect an early death - it will keep you busier. ~Martin H. Fischer

Fields can lie fallow, but we can't; we have less time. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

No! no arresting the vast wheel of time,

That round and round still turns with onward might.

~Charles Cowden Clarke

Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. ~Author Unknown

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. ~Rabindranath Tagore

The question for each man is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence, and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has. ~Hamilton

May you live all the days of your life. ~Jonathan Swift

Now is the time to get drunk! To stop being the martyred slaves of time, to get absolutely drunk - on wine, poetry, or on virtue, as you please. ~Charles Baudelaire, "Enivrez-vous," Paris Spleen, 1869

Live as you will wish to have lived when you are dying. ~Christian Furchtegott Gellert

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. ~Samuel Johnson

The swift years slip and slide adown the steep;

The slow years pass; neither will come again.

~William Sharp

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. ~Jack London

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Later never exists. ~Author Unknown

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time. ~Johann von Goethe

If you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night stand. ~Righteous Brothers, "Rock & Roll Heaven

That it will never come again

Is what makes life so sweet.

~Emily Dickinson

Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. ~ Mark Twain

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~Thomas La Mance

The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrevocable. ~Lord Chesterfield

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."- Albert Einstein

"Tis nobler to lose honor to save the lives of men than tis to gain honor by taking them."- David Borenstein

"Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when decide how to respond."- Jeffery Borenstein

"To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.- Buddha

"We need more people who specialize in the impossible."- Unknown

"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."- Rene Descartes

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."- Japanese Proverb"

"Every problem has a gift for you in its hands." -Richard Bach

"Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead." -Unknown

"One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regain sits original dimensions."- Oliver Wendel Holmes

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength."- Ralph W. Sockman

"Wisdom begins in wonder."- Socrates

"Live out of your imagination, not your history." -Stephen Covey

"People only see what they are prepared to see." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself." -Plato

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."- George Bernard Shaw

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."- Edmund Burke

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."- Anatole France

"You must do the things you think you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt

"You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself."- Harry Firestone

"Real riches are the riches possessed inside."- B. C. Forbes

"Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable."- Unknown

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."- Gandhi

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."- Mark Twain

"Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."- Henry Van Dyke

"Where there is great love, there are always wishes."- Willa Cather

"The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved."- Victor Hugo

"You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note."- Doug Floyd

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you."- Lao-Tzu

"Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Hate less, love more; And all good things are yours."- Swedish Proverb

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."- Unknown

"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be"- Abraham Lincoln

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."- William Shakespeare

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." -Theodore Roosevelt

"He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead."- Unknown

"Be true to your work, your word, and your friend."- Henry David Thoreau

"Without a struggle, there can be no progress." -Frederick Douglass

"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes."- Henry Kaiser

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."- Maya Angelou

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."- Henry David Thoreau

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."- George Santayana

"May you live every day of your life."- Jonathan Swift

"Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."- Frank Herbert

"Every problem has a gift for you in its hands."- Richard Bach

"An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind."- Buddha

"Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first time or the last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory."- Betty Smith

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."- Buddha

"The Lord is my light, and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"- Psalm

"Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."- David Lloyd George

"Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open."- Lord Thomas Dewar

"One thing you can't recycle is wasted time."- Anonymous

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose."- Robert Byrne

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end."- Ursula K. LeGuin

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live."- Joan Borysenko

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit."- Aristotle

"There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from."- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

"You live through the darkness from what you learned in the light."- Hope MacDonald

"He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened."- Anonymous

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."- Harvey Fierstein

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." -Albert Einstein

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."- Robert Frost

"The journey is the reward."- Tao Saying

"Never look down on anybody unless you helping him up."- Jesse Jackson

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."- Goethe

"The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers."- Deepak Chopra

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." -Unknown

"I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong."- Leo Rosten

"Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so."- David Grayson

"He who angers you conquers you."- Elizabeth Kenny

"Tell me who admires you and loves you, and I will tell you who you are."- Charles Augustin Sainte-Beauve

"The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes."- Victor Frank

"No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings."- William Blake

"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be."- Voltaire

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right."- Nelson Mandela

"Nurture your mind with great thoughts."- Benjamin Disraeli

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself."- Chinese Proverb

"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded."- Maya Angelou

"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."- Buddha

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."- Les Brown

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it."- William James

"A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."- Elbert Hubbard

"People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes."- Abigail Van Buren

"Knowledge is power."- Francis Bacon

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every exit is an entry somewhere."- Tom Stoppard

"It's always too early to quit."- Norman Vincent Pearle

"A person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it."- Anonymous

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."- Confucius

"This above all; to thine own self be true."- William Shakespeare

"Friends are treasures."- Horace Bruns

"We never know the worth of water 'till the well is dry."- English Proverb

"A thief believes everybody steals."- E.W. Howe

"It takes a great man to be a good listener."- Calvin Coolidge

"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back it's yours. If it doesn't, it never really was in the first place."- Unknown

"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."- Buddha

"Assumptions allow the best in life to pass you by."- John Sales

"Live free or die."- New Hampshire

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."- Japanese Proverb

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear."- Ambrose Redmoon

"Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."- Gandhi

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't."- Richard Bach

"Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed."- Michael Pritchard

"All life is an experiment."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Men are born to succeed, not to fail."- Henry David Thoreau

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."- Albert Einstein

"The sweetest of all sounds is praise."- Xenophon

"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."- William James

"The most wasted day of all is that during which we have not laughed."- Sebastian R. N. Chamfort

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."- Helen Keller

"Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble."- Arabic Parable

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."- John Powell

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however."- Richard Bach

"We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision."- Gary Collins

"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."- Nelson Mandela

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."- Woody Allen

"The harder you work, the luckier you get."- McAlexander

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The brighter you are, the more you have to learn."- Don Herold

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."- Will Rogers

"The expert at anything was once a beginner."- Hayes

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."- Carl Sagan

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people."- Victor Borge

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken bid that cannot fly."- Langston Hughes

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."- Buddha

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."- Alexander Hamilton

"It is not length of life, but depth of life."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Just when you think that a person is just a backdrop for the rest of the universe, watch them and see that they laugh, they cry, they tell jokes ... they're just friends waiting to be made."- Jeffery Borenstein

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live."- Jean-Paul Sartre

"Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf."- American Indian Proverb

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."- Oscar Wilde

"If you can imagine it, You can achieve it. If you can dream it, You can become it."- William Arthur Ward

"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."- Jeseph Joubert

"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon."- E. M. Forster

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."- Albert Einstein

"One should not stand at the foot of a sick person's bed, because that place is reserved for the guardian angel."- Jewish Folk Saying

"Some people weave burlap into the fabric of our lives, and some weave gold thread. Both contribute to make the whole picture beautiful and unique."- Unknown

"Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times."- Unknown

"Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven."- Yiddish Proverb

"Consistency is the last resort of the unimaginative."- Oscar Wilde

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."- Stephen Hawking

"He is able who thinks he is able."- Buddha

"If you want rainbows, you have to put up with the rain."- Dolly Parton

"When I find myself fading, I close my eyes and realize my friends are my energy."- Unknown

"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something."- Ornette Coleman

"The world is so fast that there are days when the person who says it can't be done is interrupted by the person who is doing it."- Unknown

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs."- Malcolm Forbes

"If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that ... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it."- John Lennon

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."- William Jennings Bryan

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."- Plutarch

"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love."- Henry Drummond

"It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens."- Baha'u'llah

Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atomies infinity. Waste not the smallest time in imbecile infirmity, for well thou knowest that seconds form eternity. ~E. Knight

Lost time is never found again. ~Benjamin Franklin

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe, Little Foxes, 1865

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. ~William Shakespeare

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. ~Henry David Thoreau

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. ~From the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Many a man gets weary of clamping down on his rough impulses, which if given occasional release would encourage the living of life with salt in it, in place of dust. ~Henry S. Haskins

Every second is of infinite value. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are always getting ready to live but never living. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The future has a way of arriving unannounced. ~George F. Will

We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact. ~Jean Paul Sartre, Situations, 1939

Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
~Henry Austin Dobson

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. ~Sydney J. Harris

No man is quick enough to enjoy life to the full. ~Spanish Proverb

How did it get so late so soon?

It's night before it's afternoon.

December is here before it's June.

My goodness how the time has flewn.

How did it get so late so soon?

~Dr. Seuss

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~Hector Berlioz

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life. ~Michael Leboeuf

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now. ~Joan Baez

The follies which a man regrets most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. ~Helen Rowland

Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours should not be numbered by years, days, and hours. ~Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weeks and Works, 1578

You only live once; but if you live it right, once is enough. ~Adam Marshall

Life, if well lived, is long enough. ~Seneca, De Ira

There are but three events in a man's life: birth, life, and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live. ~Jean de la Bruyère

What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal. ~John Howe

So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

'Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he's dead.
~Author Unknown

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it. ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to W.M. Lewis

All the windows of my heart I open to the day. ~John Greenleaf Whittier

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~Ruth Ann Schabacker

Present your family and friends with their eulogies now - they won't be able to hear how much you love them and appreciate them from inside the coffin. ~Anonymous

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there. ~Monica Baldwin

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb

When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning - how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse. ~Lord Byron

Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is the special occasion. ~Author Unknown

Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. ~African Proverb

Whatever you are be a good one. ~Abraham Lincoln

It's better to fight for something than against something. ~Author Unknown

The day will happen whether or not you get up. ~John Ciardi

Create each day anew by clothing yourself with heaven and earth, bathing yourself with wisdom and love, and placing yourself in the heart of Mother Nature. ~Morihei Ueshiba

Nature gave men two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most. ~George R. Kirkpatrick

One should always play fair when one has the winning cards. ~Oscar Wilde

Strength will grow from the heart, blossom as results, and wither in others' hearts as seeds. ~Mikhael Dominico

To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of your faults the first part of the night when you are awake, and the faults of others the latter part of the night when you are asleep. ~ Chinese Proverb

When you live in reaction, you give your power away. Then you get to experience what you gave your power to. ~N. Smith

Every ten years a man should give himself a good kick in the pants. ~Edward Steichen

Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving. ~Albert Einstein

Work hard, enrobe yourself in velvet hope, and rule your world! ~Terri Guillemets

The biggest problem in the world Could have been solved when it was small. ~Witter Bynner, The Way of Life According to Lao tzu

In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet. ~Albert Schweitzer

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up. ~Robert Frost

What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Don't look for your dreams to come true; look to become true to your dreams. ~Michael Beckwith

Bloom where you are planted. ~Mother Jones

The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail. ~Ramakrishna

Surely a man needs a closed place wherein he may strike root and, like the seed, become. But also he needs the great Milky Way above him and the vast sea spaces, though neither stars nor ocean serve his daily needs.~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

Never believe in mirrors or newspapers. ~Tom Stoppard

I may be justifying my pockets of chaos, but I will always choose people over perfection and the heart over task and tidy. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon,

Never confuse thoughtlessness with malice. ~Robert Charles Whitehead

Yet some things you miss and some things you lose by keeping your arm outstretched. ~Author Unknown

You want to run out in front, prepare to be tripped from behind. ~S.A. Sachs

Now and then it is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses. ~Oscar Wilde

It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. ~Howard Ruff, How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years, 1979

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. ~Ray Bradbury

I 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.... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. ~Bruce Lee

Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. ~Sarah Bernhardt

While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself. ~Doug Horton

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. ~Hippocrates

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. ~Buddha

Make somebody happy today. Mind your own business. ~Ann Landers "... the educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers." Theodore Schick Jr., in The_Skeptical_Inquirer, March/April, 1997

"A little fire, Scarecrow?"

"Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing."

"Anchovies? You've got the wrong man! I spell my name DANGER! (click)"

"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence." Time Bandits

"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 theirignorance the hard way." ― Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"

"But I don't like Spam!"

"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?"

"Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle." Alice Roosevelt Longworth

"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"

"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

"Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow."

"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." ― John Barrymore's dying words

"Do not stop to ask what is it; Let us go and make our visit." ― T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

"Do you have blacks, too?" ― George W. Bush, to Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso; Washington, D.C., November 8, 2001

"Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash." ― Bo Diddley

"Don't say yes until I finish talking." ― Darryl F. Zanuck

"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."

"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." ― Jeff Berner

"Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." ― Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"

"Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it."

"Grub first, then ethics." ― Bertolt Brecht

"He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech." ― Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush wasn't following up on his campaign pledge that there would be no loss of wetlands

"He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes..."

"He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..."

"His mind is like a steel trap ― full of mice." ― Foghorn Leghorn

"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." ― William Gilbert

"I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!" ― Paul McCracken

"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." ― English Professor

"I didn't accept it. I received it." ― Richard Allen, National Security Advisor to President Reagan, explaining the $1000 in cash and two watches he was given by two Japanese journalists after he helped arrange a private interview for them with First Lady Nancy Reagan.

"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating." ― Boss Tweed

"I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem." ― Ashleigh Brilliant

"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated." ― Paul Anderson

"I just need enough to tide me over until I need more." ― Bill Hoest

"I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent." ― Ashleigh Brilliant

"I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate." ― former Vice-President Dan Quayle

"I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes." ― President Richard Nixon

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."

"If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?"

"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" ― "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." ― J. Paul Getty

"If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce." ― Winston Churchill

"In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable." ― Winston Churchill, of Montgomery

"It depends on your definition of asleep. They were not stretched out. They had their eyes closed. They were seated at their desks with their heads in a nodding position." ― John Hogan, Commonwealth Edison Supervisor of News Information, responding to a charge by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector that two Dresden Nuclear Plant operators were sleeping on the job.

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased." ― Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"

"It was hell," recalls former child. ― caption to a B. Kliban cartoon

"It's bad luck to be superstitious." ― Andrew W. Mathis

"It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either." ― Kevin White, mayor of Boston

"Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets" ― The Brigader, "Dr. Who"

"Laughter is the closest distance between two people." ― Victor Borge

"MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts." ― Winston Churchill

"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain." ― Lily Tomlin

"Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it!"

"Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles."

"Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong."

"Of COURSE it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake?"

"One planet is all you get."

"She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to." ― Gypsy Rose Lee

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

"Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly."

"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway." ― Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane

"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." ― J. Finnegan, USC.

"That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all."

"The C Programming Language: A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language."

"The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them." ― Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"

The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch.

"The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, it would be a calamity." ― Benjamin Disraeli

The brain is a beautifully engineered get-out-of-the-way machine that constantly scans the environment for things out of whose way it should right now get. That's what brains did for several hundred million years ― and then, just a few million years ago, the mammalian brain learned a new trick: to predict the timing and location of dangers before they actually happened. Our ability to duck that which is not yet coming is one of the brain's most stunning innovations, and we wouldn't have dental floss or 401(k) plans without it. But this innovation is in the early stages of development. The application that allows us to respond to visible baseballs is ancient and reliable, but the add-on utility that allows us to respond to threats that loom in an unseen future is still in beta testing. ― Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times; 6 July, 2006

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer." ― Henry Kissinger

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

"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!"

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe." ― the late Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and ex- mayor of Philadelphia

The voters have spoken, the bastards...

"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood." ― Alexander Haig

The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune.

... And malt does more than Milton can/To justify God's ways to man ― A. E. Housman

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says "You're all idiots", and pours two beers.

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's Law

Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic.

... 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"

... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. ... ― Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215

... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.

... The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks attempts to expose sham paranormal studies; and (2) it is very well and plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple jeering. ― Harry Eagar, reviewing "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael Talbot, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 200-201

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself―and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. ― R. P. Feynman, "Cargo Cult Science"

... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. ― J. B. White

... 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"

... 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. ― Letter in NEW LIBERTARIAN NOTES #19

... they [the Indians] are not running but are coming on. ― note sent from Lt. Col Custer to other officers of the 7th Regiment at the Little Bighorn

...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

... It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan. ― Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131

...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.

...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, "Notes on Virginia"

...it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. ― Sidney Hook

...skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth. ― Herbert Spencer

...the increased productivity fostered by a friendly environment and quality tools is essential to meet ever increasing demands for software. ― M. D. McIlroy, E. N. Pinson and B. A. Tague

...there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. ― George Jacob Holyoake

...this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." ― The Firesign Theater

...though his invention worked superbly ― his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. ― Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"

...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. ― Fred Brooks, Jr.

/earth is 98

full ... please delete anyone you can.

10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.

36 percent of the American public believes that boiling radioactive milk makes it safe to drink. ― results of a survey by Jon Miller at Northern Illinois University

43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation fault ― core dumped

80 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot, including this one.

of all guys are within one standard deviation of your mom.

A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

A bore is a man you deprives you of solitude without providing you with company. ― Gian Vincenzo Gravina

A Nixon [is preferable to] a Dean Rusk ― who will be passionately wrong with a high sense of consistency. ― J. K. Galbraith

A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun.

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 billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. ― Everett Dirksen

A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.

A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward.

A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.

A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

A child's education should begin at least 100 years before he is born. ― Oliver Wendell Holmes

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. ― Herbert Prochnow

A clash of doctrine is not a disaster ― it is an opportunity.

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done. ― Fred Allen

A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. ― Alfred E. Wiggam

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk. ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

A conservative is one who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. ― Ben Franklin

A critic is a legless man who teaches running. ― Channing Pollock

A day without sunshine is like night.

A decision occurs when one abandons the obvious for the possible. ― P. Taylor

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. ― Caskie Stinnett

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age. ― Robert Frost

A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano ...

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. ― Ogden Nash

A 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 a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. ― Winston Churchill

A fool must now and then be right by chance.

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. ― G. B. Shaw

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. ― Samuel Johnson

A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. ― D. Gries

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something. ― Wilson Mizner

A good memory does not equal pale ink.

A good workman is known by his tools.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. ― William James

A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold.

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his weight in other people's patience. ― John Updike

A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

A king's castle is his home.

A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. ― Dennis M. Ritchie

A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. ― Anatol Holt

A learning experience is one of those things that says, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that." ― attributed to Douglas Adams

A little caution outflanks a large cavalry. ― Bismarck

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 lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. ― Lew Col

A man forgives only when he is in the wrong.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. ― John Barrymore

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

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 shall never be enriched by envy. ― Thomas Draxe

A man who fishes for marlin in ponds will put his money in Etruscan bonds.

A man who turns green has eschewed protein.

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.

A manager would rather live with a problem that he cannot solve than accept a solution that he does not understand. ― G. Woolsey

A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.

A mathematician named Hall Has a hexahedronical ball, And the cube of its weight Times his pecker's, plus eight Is his phone number ― give him a call.

A model is an artifice for helping you convince yourself that you understand more about a system than you do.

A moose once bit my sister.

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. ― Thomas Jefferson

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

A nymph hits you and steals your virginity.

A penny saved is ridiculous.

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

A person who knows only one side of a question knows little of that.

A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure. Proverb

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. ― George Wald

A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs.

A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.

A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two. ― Seneca

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 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 right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. ― Ramsey Clark

A scout troop consists of twelve little kids dressed like schmucks following a big schmuck dressed like a kid. - Jack Benny

A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. ― Samuel Johnson

A sine curve goes off into infinity or at least to the end of the blackboard.

A smile is the shortest distance between two people. ― Victor Borge

A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. ― O'Henry

A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam.

A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. ― S. C. Johnson

A thing is worth precisely what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it. ― John Ruskin

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 truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. ― John Ciardi

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. ― Tenessee Williams

A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work.

A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

A well-known friend is a treasure.

A witty saying proves nothing. ― Voltaire

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

Ada, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an Ada awareness."

Abandon hope, all ye who press "ENTER" here.

Ability is useless unless it is used. ― Robert Half

About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard.

About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog.

About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. ― Herbert Hoover

Above all things, reverence yourself.

Abstention makes the heart grow fonder.

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.

According to my best recollection, I don't remember. ― Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo

According to the latest official figures, 43

of all statistics are totally worthless.

According to my scuba instructor, if a shark attacks, you're supposed to poke it in the eye with your finger. After that, I suppose you should hit it in the face with a cream pie, or maybe hose it down with a seltzer bottle. ― Jerry L. Embry

Accordion: A bagpipe with pleats.

Accuracy: The vice of being right.

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing.

Activity makes more men's fortunes than cautiousness. ― Marquis de Vauvenargues

Actors will happen in the best-regulated families.

Ada is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist. ― Jean Ichbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie

Adapt. Enjoy. Survive.

Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] ― Ovid

Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.

Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Adult: One old enough to know better.

Adversity makes men, prosperity monsters. ― French Proverb

Advertisement: The most truthful part of a newspaper. ― Thomas Jefferson

Advertising: The science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. ― Stephen Leacock

After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. ― Freeman Dyson

After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.

After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done.

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 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 winning the pennant one year, Casey Stengel commented, "I couldn'ta done it without my players."

Air is water with holes in it.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means. ― Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed

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."

Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone.

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 I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance.

All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. ― Kingfish

All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm place to shift.

All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time.

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy in its own way. ― Tolstoy

All in all it's just another brick in the wall.

All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. ― Jane Wagner

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., The Mythical Man Month

All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. ― Samuel Butler

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. ― E. Rutherford

All that glitters has a high refractive index.

All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. ― Sean O'Casey

All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

All through human history, tyrannies have tried to enforce obedience by prohibiting disrespect for the symbols of their power. The swastika is only one example of many in recent history. ― American Bar Association task force on flag burning

All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.

All wise men share one trait in common: the ability to listen.

Allen's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions.

Alliance, n.: 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"

Although every American has a sense of humor―it is his birthright and encoded somewhere in the Constitution―few Americans have never been able to cope with wit or irony, and even the simplest jokes often cause unease, especially today when every phrase must be examined for covert sexism, racism, ageism. ― Gore Vidal, "The Essential Mencken," The Nation, August 26/September 2, 1991.

Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back.

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible. ― Alfred Hitchcock

Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ― Charlie McCarthy

America had often been discovered before Columbus; it had just been hushed up. ― Oscar Wilde

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 Non Sequitur Society: We don't make sense. We like pizza.

Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it.

Among the chosen, you are the lucky one.

Among the lucky, you are the chosen one.

An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops.

An Army travels on its stomach.

An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. ― A. P. Herbert

An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible. ― Alfred A. Knopf

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

An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

An idle mind is worth two in the bush.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. ― Albert Camus

"There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor."

"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope." ― Oscar Wilde

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." ― C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

"They gave me a book of checks. They didn't ask for any deposits." ― Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank scandal.

This is a country where people are free to practice their religion, regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys...

"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." ― Woody Allen

To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?

"Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives opportunism a bad name." ― Gore Vidal

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite." ― John Kenneth Galbraith

"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."

"We don't have to protect the environment ― the Second Coming is at hand." ― James Watt

"We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation." ― Lily Tomlin

"We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later."

"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what CAN you believe?!" ― Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]

"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?" ― Bertold Brecht

"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." ― Jon Carroll

"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite." ― Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war

"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

"Why be a man, when you can be a success?" ― Bertold Brecht

"Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?" ― Lily Tomlin

"Why was I born with such contemporaries?" ― Oscar Wilde

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. ― Lewis Carrol

"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. ― S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"

"Yes, that was Richard Nixon. He used to be President. When he left the White House, the Secret Service would count the silverware." ― Woody Allen, "Sleeper"

"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't." ― Dagwood Bumstead

"You'll never be the man your mother was!"

$100 invested at 7

interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. ― Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability. ― George Bernard Shaw

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. ― Alfred, Lord Tennyson

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. ― Benjamin Franklin

Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all.

Anarchy: It's not the law, it's just a good idea.

And I alone am returned to wag the tail.

And now for something completely different.

And now that the legislators and the do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they end up where they should have begun: may they reject all systems, and try liberty... ― Frederic Bastiat

And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.

And the Lord God said unto Moses ― and correctly, I believe ... ― Field Marshal Montgomery, opening a chapel service

And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden silence, turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said. Wide-eyed, the Child raised his voice and said once again, "Why, the Emperor has no clothes! He is naked!" ― "The Emperor's New Clothes"

And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.

And they told us, what they wanted... Was a sound that could kill some-one, from a distance. ― Kate Bush

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 thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight...Then he [the Lord!] said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. [Ezek. 4:12-15 (KJV)]

Anger is a prelude to courage. ― Eric Hoffer

Angular momentum makes the world go round.

Ankh if you love Isis.

Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.

Another one bites the dust.

Anthony's Law of Force: Do not 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.

Antimatter doesn't matter as a matter of fact. ― Piggins

Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem. (In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.)

Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.

Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. ― Charles McCabe

Any excuse will serve a tyrant. ― Aesop

Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

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 job worth quitting is worth sticking around long enough until they fire you. ― Tim Wirth

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, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984

Any shrine is better than self-worship.

Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.

Any small object when dropped will hide under a larger object.

Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic. ― Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.

Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice. ― Paul Chvostek by way of Arthur C. Clarke (via John Ripley)

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 two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. ― Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.

Anyone can hate. It costs to love. ― John Williamson

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. ― Publilius Syrus

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. ― Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

Anyone who 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 wants to be paid for writing software is a fascist asshole. ― Richard M. Stallman, founder, Free Software Foundation

Anything anybody can say about America is true. ― Emmett Grogan

Anything free is worth what you pay for it.

Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.

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 worth doing is worth overdoing

Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.

Arbolist . . . Look up the word. I don't know, maybe I made it up. Anyway, it's an arbo-tree-ist, somebody who knows about trees. ― George W. Bush, quoted in USA Today; August 21, 2001

Are we not men?

Are you a turtle?

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. ― Mickey Mouse

Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle

army, n.: A body of men assembled to rectify the mistakes of the diplomats. ― Josephus Daniels

Army Axiom: An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

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.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art. ― Harry S Truman (one of his more ridiculous comments)

As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable."

As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself."

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. ― Weisert

As goatherd learns his trade by goat, so writer learns his trade by wrote.

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 regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power. ― Thomas Aquinas, prominent historical misogynist

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 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 system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces ― faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively 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., "The Mythical Man Month"

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, 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 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 read the scroll it vanishes, and you hear maniacal laughter in the distance.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, If God won't have you, the devil must.

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.

Assuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles. ― Pat Paulsen

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 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 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 the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes ― an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the field on track. ― Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987

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.

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

Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. ― Winston Churchill

Auribus teneo lupum. (I hold a wolf by the ears.)

Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians.

Automobile: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians.

Average managers are concerned with methods, opinions, precedents. Good managers are concerned with solving problems.

Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. ― National Lampoon, "Deteriorada"

Avoid letting temper block progress; keep cool. ― William Feather

Be seeing you.

Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life.

Beauty is only skin deep, but Ugly goes straight to the bone.

Bees are not as busy as we think they are; they just cannot buzz any slower. ― Abe Martin

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance. ― Louis Brandeis

Behold the warranty: The bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.

Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend.

Being stoned on marijuana isn't very different from being stoned on gin. ― Ralph Nader

Berkeley's First Law of Mistakes: The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it―it probably isn't right.

Corollary 1 to Berkeley's First Law of Mistakes: Always let an answer cool off for awhile―it should not be used while hot.

Corollary 2 to Berkeley's First Law of Mistakes: Check the answer you have worked out once more―before you tell it to anybody.

Berkeley's Second Law of Mistakes: If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later, the mistake will be made.

Better living a beggar than buried an emperor.

Between the choice of two evils, I always pick the one I've never tried before. ― Mae West

Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost. ― Ivan Chtcheglov

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. ― Donald Knuth

Beware of Geeks bearing grifts.

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.

Beware of friends who are false and deceitful.

Beware of low-flying butterflies.

Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy.

Beware the new TTY code!

Biggest security gap - an open mouth.

Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, and you'll be Gary, Indiana. - Jessie in the movie "Greaser's Palace"

Biography is the fallacy of intention. ― Peter Taylor

Biology ... it grows on you.

Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic

Black holes are where God is dividing by zero.

Blah.

Bleeding into a new computer is always a good thing; it's an ancient geek voodoo magic to ensure its long life and reliability. ― from Mike Taht's blog, http://the-edge.blogspot.com/

Blessed are the meek for they shall inhibit the earth.

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

Blessed is the man who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night. ― Leo Aikman

Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.

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.

Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.

Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.

Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas. ― Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale"

Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look.

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble.

Boss, n.: 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, n.: Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition.

Boy, n.: A noise with dirt on it.

Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee. that will do them in.

Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee. That will do them in.

Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"

Brain fried ― core dumped

Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Bride, n.: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon.

Broad-mindedness: The result of flattening high-mindedness out.

Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

Bubble Memory, n.: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".

Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

Bug: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls.

Bumper Sticker: Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children.

Bumper sticker on nuclear war: if you have seen one, you have seen them all.

Bunk Carter's Law: At any given moment there are more important people in the world than important jobs to contain them.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. ― Balzac

Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure.

Bureaucrats cut read tape ― length-wise.

Burnt Sienna: That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. ― Ken Weaver

Business will be either better or worse. ― Calvin Coolidge

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"

By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. ― Ashleigh Brilliant

By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you.

By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. ― P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in the April 1988 issue of "Computer Language"

C, n.: 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++ : Where friends have access to your private members. ― Gavin Russell Baker

CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. ― Randall Garrett

Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Cabbage: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

Caeca invidia est. (Envy is blind.) ― Livy

Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions.

California is a fine place to live ― if you happen to be an orange. ― Fred Allen

California is the ghost of Christmas future for the rest of America. ― anonymous post to an Internet forum

California is the land of perpetual pubescence, where cultural lag is mistaken for renaissance. ― Ashley Montagu

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

Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool Mom.

Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes.

Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: 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"

Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world.

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"

Change is what people fear most. ― Dostoevski

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Character Density: the number of very weird people in the office.

Character is the ligament holding together all other qualities. ― Arnold Glasow

Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.

Chicken Little was right.

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.

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 need of models than of critics.

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.

Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.

Civilisation is the art of living in towns of such size that everyone does not know everyone else. ― Julian Jaynes

Civilization Law #1: Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations one can do without thinking about them.

Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor. ― Toynbee

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. ― Howard Roark, in Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_

[Classical music] would be a lot more popular if they gave the pieces titles like "Kill the Wabbit." ― Mark Fetherolf.

Classified material requires proper storage.

Cleanliness is next to impossible.

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum ― "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Cogito ergo doleo. (I think, therefore I am depressed.)

Cogito ergo sum.

Cohen's Law: Everyone knows that the name of the game is what label you succeed in imposing on the facts.

Collaboration, n.: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell.

College isn't the place to go for ideas. ― Hellen Keller

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is nothing like Shakespeare. ― Blair Houghton

Commitment, n.: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. ― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Complacency is the enemy of progress. ― Dave Stutman

Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory.

Computer Science: the boring art of coping with a large number of trivialities (The Devil's DP Dictionary)

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, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984

Conceit causes more conversation than wit. ― LaRouchefoucauld

Concept, n.: 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., "The Mythical Man Month"

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

Confusticate and bebother these dwarves!

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

Conservative, n.: One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead. ― Leo C. Rosten

Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them.

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. ― Brian W. Kernighan

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

Conway's Law: Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it.

Coronation, n.: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown sky-high with a dynamite bomb. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Corripe Cervisiam!

Corrupt, adj.: 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

Courage is grace under pressure.

Coward, n.: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. ― Wernher von Braun

Creativity cannot be diminished by the medium of expression. ― Mitch Allen

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. ― Isaac Asimov

Creditors have better memories than debtors. ― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. ― A. E. Newman

Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. ― Howard Scott

Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. ― Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.

Cynic, n.: 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, n.: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward, they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. ― J. W. von Goethe

Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason go to bed. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

De Borglie rules the wave, but Heisenberg waived the rules. ― Piggins

Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.

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 Nature's way of saying, "slow down".

Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. ― R. Geis

Death: to stop sinning suddenly.

Debugging is anticipated with distaste, performed with reluctance, and bragged about forever. ― button at the Boston Computer Museum

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are―by definition―not smart enough to debug it. ― Brian Kernighan

Decisionmaker, n.: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped.

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 Association

Decisions terminate panic.

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. ― Senator Soaper

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. ― G. B. Shaw

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb, voting on what to have for lunch.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. ― E. B. White

Denniston's Law: Virtue is its own punishment.

Deprive a mirror of its silver, and even the Czar won't see his face.

Der Unterschied zwischen Genie und Wahnsinn liegt nur im Erfolg. [The only difference between genius and insanity is the success.]

Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Memphis? Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks. Do I smell? I smell home cooking. It's only the river, it's only the river. ― Talking Heads (Cities)

Did you know gullible is not in the dictionary?

Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.

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.

Diplomacy is the art of extricating oneself from a situation that tact would have prevented in the first place.

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

Disc space ― the final frontier!

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

Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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 missle 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 merely believe in miracles, rely on them.

Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses.

Do not compromise yourself; you are all you have got. ― Janis Joplin

Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive.

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 value of print statements for debugging. Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either.

Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them?

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.

Don't be overly suspicious where it's not warranted.

Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.

Don't comment bad code: rewrite it.

Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality.

Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers.

Don't diddle code to make it faster, find a better algorithm.

Dobbin's Law: When in doubt, use a bigger hammer.

Don't get suckered in by the comments ― they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. ― Dave Storer

Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam.

Don't learn the tricks of the trade, learn the trade.

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 put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.

Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. ― James J. Ling

Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal. ― Zaphod Beeblebrox

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. ― Charles Schultz

Don't worry about things that you have no control over, because you have no control over them. Don't worry about things that you have control over, because you have control over them. ― Mickey Rivers

Don't worry about what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying about what you are thinking about them.

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, German theologian and historian

Doubts and jealousies often beget the facts they fear. ― Thomas Jefferson

Down with categorical imperative!

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Ducharme's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.

Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together ... ― Carl Zwanzig

Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued.

Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.

Dum excusare credis, accusas. (When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.) ― St. Jerome

Dunne's Law: The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation.

During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been upon 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

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. W. Somerset Maughm

E Pluribus Unix

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. ― James Bryant Conant

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., "The Mythical Man Month"

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. ― John Kenneth Galbraith

Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... ― Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"

Economy makes men independent.

Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. ― G. M. Trevelyan

Education helps earning capacity. Ask any college professor.

Een schip op het strand is een baken in zee. [A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea.] ― Dutch Proverb

Eeny Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak. ― Bullwinkle Moose

Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. ― Adlai Stevenson

Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. ― Bellamy Brooks

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. ― Frank Leahy

Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Ehrman's Commentary: 1. Things will get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better?

Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. ― Ronald Reagan, famous movie star

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.

Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it. ― Ovid

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. ― Oscar Wilde's last words

Electrocution: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.

Elevators smell different to midgets

Eloquence is vehement simplicity. ― Cecil

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.

Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. ― Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary

Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May.

Entropy isn't what it used to be.

Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides. ― Pliny

Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. ― Jerome Lettvin

Equal bytes for women.

Eschew obfuscatory digressiveness. ― Barry Dancis (1983)

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. ― Woody Allen

Ettore's observation: the other line moves faster.

Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars came 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

Even a cabbage may look at a king.

Even a hawk is an eagle among crows.

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 the boldest zebra fears the hungry lion.

Even the future comes one day at a time. ― W. Woodhouse

Even the smallest candle burns brighter in the dark.

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.

Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are.

Ever wander around the web, look at discussions, totally agree with one of the points of view, and then notice it was posted under one of your web aliases 5 years ago? ― Larry Weber

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 the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.

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 institution I've ever been associated with has tried to screw me. ― Stephen Wolfram

Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. ― Don Vonada

Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. ― Miguel de Cervantes

Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction ― from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.

Every program has two purposes ― one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.

Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.

Every purchase has its price.

Every silver lining has a cloud around it.

Every solution breeds new problems.

Every successful person has had failures, but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.

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

Everything is better with no people. ― Bob "Biff" Rendar

Dykstra's Law: Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.

Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs.

Everything to excess! Moderation is for monks. ― Lazarus Long

Everything you know is wrong. ― The Firesign Theater

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

Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.

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. ― Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, "The Pre-Adamic Creation and Evolution"

Evolution does not require the nonexistence of God, it merely allows for it. That alone is enough to evoke condemnation from those who fear the nonexistence of God more than they fear God Himself. ― Keith Doyle, in talk.origins

Evolution is both fact and theory. Creationism is neither. ― Anonymous

Exactitude in small matters is the essence of discipline.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

Excellent day to have a rotten day.

Excellent time to become a missing person.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. ― W. Somerset Maugham

Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility.

Excuse me while I change into something more formidable.

Executive ability is prominent in your make-up.

Expense Accounts, n.: Corporate food stamps.

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other. ― Poor Richard's Almanac

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. ― Franklin P. Jones

Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instructions afterward.

Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones.

Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.

Extreme good-naturedness borders on weakness of character. Avoid it.

Extremes of fortune are fatal to folks of small dimensions. ― Arnold Glasow

FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the ....

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Facts are simple and facts are straight / Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view / Facts don't do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around / Facts are living turned inside out. Facts are getting the best of them / Facts are nothing on the face of things. Facts don't stain the furniture / Facts go out and slam the door. Facts are written all over your face / Facts continue to change their shape. ― Talking Heads

Failing to get them to do it your way might mean they're stupid, but it also means you failed to get them to do it your way. ― Cal Keegan

Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital.

Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product. ― Ferenc Mantfeld

Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire. [Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you.] ― Menu of Restaurant Antoine, New Orleans [Also, what we're going to be telling our customers]

Fairy Tale: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.

Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint. ― Dave Sim, author of "Cerberus the Aardvark"

Familiarity breeds attempt

Familiarity breeds children.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

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

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. ― Santayana

Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels. ― Goya

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat. ― Theodore Roosevelt

Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth.

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

Felson's Law: To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

Field theories, unite!

Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.

Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

Finagle's Second Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

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, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987

Fine, Java MIGHT be a good example of what a programming language should be like. But Java applications are good examples of what applications SHOULDN'T be like. ― pixadel

Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.

Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.

Finster's Law: a closed mouth gathers no feet.

First Law of Procrastination: Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline).

First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary.

First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself, historians merely repeat each other.

Flee at once: All is discovered.

Flon's Law: There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs.

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

Follow the river and you will eventually find the sea.

Football combines the two worst features of American life: violence and committee meetings. ― George Will

For a really sweet time, call C6H12O6.

For a while there I was worried that my tin foil beanie was blocking the TopFive.com website. Luckily it turned out to be a router problem. ― Attributed to "wubwub", quoted on www.ruminate.com (2004)

For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

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

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 the politicians this was never about how efficient they could make things happen or how to solve a problem, it is about the *appearance* of efficiency, or problem solving. My observation is that most politicians think more like sales people than technicians, and are about as clueful. Which means, unless the politicians change the way they think, discussion about how to use *them* to go about really solving these problems would be like asking a booth babe to write a kernel module. ― Rich Costine

For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. ― Abraham Lincoln

Forgetfulness, n.: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences ― if you have none, someone will make one for you.

Fourth Law of Thermodymanics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero. ― David Ellis

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.

Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them.

Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Frobnicate, v.: 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.

From the ice-age to the dole-age there is but one concern and I have just discovered: some girls are bigger than others some girls are bigger than others some girls are bigger than other girls' mothers ― The Smiths

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

Froud's Law: A transistor protected by a fast acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first.

Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over.

Furbling, v.: Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line. ― Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. ― H. H. Williams

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."

Garbage In ― Gospel Out.

Garter, n.: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Genderplex, n.: 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"

Gene Police: YOU! Out of the pool!

Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals.

Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.

Genius is the talent of a man who is dead.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. ― Elbert Hubbard

Genius: A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright".

Genuinely skillful use of obscenities is uniformly absent on the Internet. ― Karl Kleinpaste

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeeezing one's eyes shut and wailing, "Does not!" ― Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org

George Orwell was an optimist.

Get forgiveness now ― tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.

Get hold of portable property. ― Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

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 small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. ― Abraham Kaplan

Give big space to the festive dog that shall sport in the roadway.

Give me a plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh Dome, and a place to stand, and I will drain the world.

Give up.

Giving advice is not as risky as people say; few ever take it anyway.

Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may be in owning a piece thereof. ― National Lampoon, "Deteriorada"

Go soothingly in the grease mud, as there lurks the skid demon.

Go west young, man.

God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter.

God does not play dice with the universe.

God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can choose 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 is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. ― Voltaire

God is a polytheist.

God is a verb, not a noun.

God is an atheist.

God is playing a comic to an audience that's afraid to laugh.

God is real, unless declared integer.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. ― Pablo Picasso

God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. ― Alfred Jarry

God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.

God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. ― Kronecker

God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.

God requireth not a uniformity of religion. ― Roger Williams

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

Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

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.

Goldenstern's Rules: 1. Always hire a rich attorney 2. Never buy from a rich salesman.

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. ― La Rouchefoucauld

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. ― George Saunders' dying words

Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro, 6.02 E23.

Goto, n.: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers to complain about unstructured programmers. ― Ray Simard

Government expands to absorb all revenue and then some.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. ― Tolstoy

Government sucks. ― Ben Olson

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.

Grain grows best in shit. ― Ursula K. LeGuin

Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

Granholm's Definition of the Kludge: An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts forming a distressing whole. ― Jackson W. Granholm, "How to Design a Kludge," Datamation, Feb. 1962

Gray's Law of Programming: `N+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as `N' tasks. Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: `N+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `N' trivial tasks.

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine. ― Fran Lebowitz

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent.

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.

Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. ― Andrew Hacker, The End of the American Era (1970)

Haggis is a kind of stuffed black pudding eaten by the Scots and considered by them to be not only a delicacy but fit for human consumption. The minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, calf or other animal's inner organs are mixed with oatmeal, sealed and boiled in maw in the sheep's intestinal stomach-bag and ... Excuse me a minute ...

Half of one, six dozen of the other.

Half the things that people do not succeed in are through fear of making the attempt.

Hand, n.: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday.

Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others.

Happiness comes and goes and is short on staying power. ― Frank Tyger

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. ― Ogden Nash

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. ― Oscar Levant

Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Happiness: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

Harris' Lament: All the good ones are taken.

Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken.

Harrisberger's Second Law of the Lab: No matter what result it anticipated, there is always someone willing to fake it.

Harrisberger's Third Law of the Lab: Experiments should be reproducive. They should all fail in the same way.

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.

Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something.

Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.

Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Has 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, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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 locked your file cabinet?

Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk?

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 hated to mend, so young Ned Called in a cute neighbor instead. Her husband said, "Vi, When you stitched up his torn fly, Did you have to bite off the thread?"

He is considered the most graceful speaker who can say nothing in most words.

He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap.

He launched a massive attack on everything this country held inviolate, on most of what it held self-evident. He showed how our politics was dominated by time-servers and demagogues, our religion by bigots, our culture by puritans. He showed how the average citizen, both in himself and in the way he let himself be pulled around by the nose, was a boob. ― Louis Kronenberger, "H.L. Mencken," in Malcolm Cowley, ed., After the Genteel Tradition, 1964.

He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.

He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. ― John Mason Brown, drama critic

He that labors and thrives spins gold. ― George Herbert

He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself.

He thinks by infection, catching an opinion like a cold.

He walks as if balancing the family tree on his nose.

He was so narrow-minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.

He wasn't much of an actor, he wasn't much of a Governor ― Hell, they HAD to make him President of the United States. It's the only job he's qualified for! ― Michael Cain

He who Laughs, Lasts.

He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself. ― William S. Paley, chairman of CBS

He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last.

He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.

He who hates vices hates mankind.

He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

He who invents adages for others to peruse takes along rowboat when going on cruise.

He who laughs, lasts.

He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes.

He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return. ― South African Saying

He who sneezes without a handkerchief takes matters into his own hands.

He who spends a storm beneath a tree takes life with a grain of TNT.

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. ― M. C. Escher

He'll sit here and he'll say, "Do this! Do that!" And nothing will happen. ― Harry S. Truman, on presidential power

He's dead, Jim.

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.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Heaven, n.: 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, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.

Hedonist for hire: no job too easy.

Heisenberg may have slept here.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. ― Milton Friedman

Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization.

Hello. My name is Batman. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Help a swallow land at Capistrano.

Help stamp out, remove and abolish redundancy.

Her life was saved by rock and roll. ― Lou Reed

Herblock's Law: if it is good, they will stop making it.

Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. ― Peter Drucker

Here at Controls, we have one chief for every Indian.

Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms.

Hey what? Where? When? (Are you confused as I am?)

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.

Hidden talent counts for nothing. ― Nero

Hindsight is an exact science.

Hippogriff, n.: 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 the morally handicapped.

His heart was yours from the first moment that you met.

History does not repeat itself; historians merely repeat each other.

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion ― i.e., none to speak of. ― Lazarus Long

History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. ― Thomas Jefferson, to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

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 moult is a step gained. ― Charles Darwin, from "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.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

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

Holy Smoke, Batman, it's the Joker!

Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. ― F. M. Hubbard

Honi soit la vache qui rit.

Honorable, adj.: 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"

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

How about a little fire, scarecrow?

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

How can you be two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? ― Firesign Theater

How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?

How does a project get to be a year late? ... One day at a time. ― Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month

Q. How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? A. It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him.

Q. How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue.

Q. How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. "That's a known problem... don't worry about it."

Q. How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Three: one to screw it in and two to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work.

Q. How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? A. Two. One to change the bulb and one to mix the drinks.

Q. How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A. None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way.

Q. How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? A. "Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem."

Q. How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? A. None. It's a hardware problem.

Q. How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a light bulb? A. You don't know, man. You don't KNOW. Cause you weren't THERE. ― http://bash.org/?255991

Q. How was Thomas J. Watson buried? A. 9 edge down.

Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work.

However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner ... sulking and nausea. ― Tom K. Ryan

Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.

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.

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

Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh ..............

I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows. ― Susan B. Anthony

I HATE arbitrary limits, especially when they're small. ― Stephen Savitzky

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absented myself from Christian assemblies. ― Benjamin Franklin

I have had interactions with developers who are convinced that everything in .Net was created solely by MS for open source usage. But that could be another result of vaccination preservatives. ― Larry Weber

I think 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! And I'm sick and tired of being told that I am. ― Monty Python

I would defend the liberty of concenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent. ― Arthur C. Clarke

I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book [the Bible]. ― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part 1, Section 5

I'm also not very analytical. You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things. ― George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One; June 4, 2003

I'm an evolutionist because I judge the evidence for the unity of life by common descent over billions of years to be overwhelming, not so that I can cheat on my wife or kick the cat with impunity. I live in no hope of heaven or fear of hell, but like most of my fellow Americans of all religious persuasions, I try to live a decent life. Folks like Tom DeLay just can't get it through their heads that a person can choose to live ethically because civilized life requires doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. ― Chet Raymo, science columnist for The Boston Globe, in a 5 Sep, 1999, article on the anti-evolution decision by Kansas School Board

I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their beliefs in order to hold their jobs. The idea is inconsistent with our constitutional theory and has been stubbornly opposed by watchful men since the early days of the Republic. ― E.B. White, in a letter to the New York Herald Tribune (November 29, 1947)

I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormenter. ― Leo Tolstoy

I am astounded ... at the wonderful power you have developed ― and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. ― Arthur Sullivan, on seeing a demonstration of Edison's new talking machine in 1888

I am not now, and never have been, a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. ― Gloria Steinem

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 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 getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. ― G. K. Chesterton

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. ― Will Rogers

I'll bet the human brain is a kludge. ― Marvin Minsky

I can call spirits 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't complain, but sometimes I still do. ― Joe Walsh

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 contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ― Steven Roberts

I could prove God statistically. ― George Gallup

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat veggies.

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 myself, and God forbid that I should. ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand. ― Sir Edware Appleton

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 care if I'm a lemming. I'm not going.

I don't care if it works on your machine! We are not shipping your machine! ― Vidiu Platon

I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. ― Ashleigh Brilliant

I don't like spreading rumors, but what else can you do with them?

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 dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives. ― Leray Scifres

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. ― Ashleigh Brilliant

I fart in your general direction, tiny-brained wiper of other people's bottoms.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. ― Mae West

I get the feeling that as soon as something appears in the paper, it ceases to be true. ― T-Bone Burnett

I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves. ― George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.; September 21, 2003

I go to seek a great perhaps. ― Francois Rabelais

I had a great idea this morning but I did not like it. ― Anon

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. ― Samuel Goldwyn

I hate quotations. ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. ― A. R. Longworth

I have discovered the heart of bushido: to die! ― Yamamoto Tsunetomo

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. ― Clarence Darrow

I haven't lost my mind ― it's backed up on tape somewhere.

I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it.

I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. ― Joe Mullally, computer salesman

I just thought of something funny...your mother. ― Cheech Marin

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 the future, I'm in it.

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, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87

I must have slipped a disk; my pack hurts.

I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.

I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like.

I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. ― William F. Buckley

I program, therefore I am.

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 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 regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. ― J. Edgar Hoover

I sat through it. Why shouldn't you? ― David Letterman, it a spot promoting one of his shows

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot. ― King Henry V, "Henry V", Act III, Scene 1

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, 1896

I support everyone's right to be an idiot. I may need it someday.

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 Microsoft named .NET so it wouldn't show up in a Unix directory listing. ― Oktal

I think people are reacting to what they perceive to be your simplistic and fetishistic understanding of the economy, which is becoming more and more pronouncedly so in its outward manifestations as you react to your misunderstanding of people's reactions to your reaction to what you perceived as Sam's simplistic and fetishistic understanding of the economy. ― Gordan Todorovac

I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. ― Oscar Wilde

I think time is crucial to anything. For example, if you lock an infinite number of monkeys in a room with those typewriters, but you limit the amount of time they have to write, the best you'll get out of them is the pilot to The Dukes of Hazzard. ―Doug Sykes

I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my lifetime. ― Johnny Legend

I think we're all Bozos on this bus.

I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed. ― Marvin

I tried being reasonable once. I didn't like it.

I use not only all the brains I have but all that I can borrow. ― Woodrow Wilson

I used to be indecisive; now I'm not sure. ― Graffiti

I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

I was brought up in the other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only from fear. ― Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"

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 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 will never use biometrics. I'm afraid they'll make me change my password. ― Drew Sudell

I will contend that conceptual integrity is *the* most important consideration in system design. ― Frederick Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_

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 they all could be California girls.

I wish you humans would leave me alone.

I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent. ― Arthur C. Clarke

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 wouldn't mind dying ― it's that business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me. ― R. Geis

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

I'll tell you what kind of guy I was. If you ordered a boxcar full of sons-of-bitches and opened the door and only found me inside, you could consider the order filled. ― Robert Mitchum

I'm a misanthrope. What's your fucking problem?

I'm growing older, but not up. ― Jimmy Buffett

I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here? ― Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate

I'm mad, and that's a fact./I found out animals don't help. Animals think they're pretty smart./Shit on the ground, see in the dark. ― Talking Heads (Fear of Music)

I'm not breaking the rules. I'm just testing their elasticity.

I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid, and I'm not going.

I've got a bad feeling about this.

I've had fun before. This isn't it.

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

Idiot Box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. ― Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. ― Roy Santoro

If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows. ― Yiddish saying

If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?

If I had a hammer, I'd use it on Peter, Paul and Mary. ― Howard Rosenberg

If I had any humility I would be perfect. ― Ted Turner

If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. ― Robert Sewell

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 Murphy's Law were true, every time you tried to take a breath, all the air would be on the other side of the room.

If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.

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 listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.

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

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. ― John Kenneth Galbraith

If all the philosophers in the world were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion.

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 idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it isn't worth the effort.

If anything can go wrong, it will.

If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool.

If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success.

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

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 (1832-1904), literary essayist, author

If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers?

If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?

If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.

If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the liberals?

If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created that whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading mankind? ― Arthur C. Clarke, June 5, 1998, in the essay "Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids"

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 doesn't come from you, shouldn't it come from Gerber? ― Bristol Meyers baby formula ad

If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly.

If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven.

If it weren't for Newton, we wouldn't have to eat bruised apples.

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 life is a stage, I want some better lighting.

If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number.

If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.

If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges.

If one year is seven dog years, then one day is a dog week.

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 God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. ― Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"

If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.

If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything.

If people were required to know the law rather than obey it, the government would be overthrown the very next day.

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 someone gives you a lemon, make lemonade. ― D. Woodhouse

If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. ― Pope John Paul I

If someone were to ask me for a short cut to sensuality, I would suggest he go shopping for a used 427 Shelby-Cobra. But it is only fair to warn you that of the 300 guys who switched to them in 1966, only two went back to women. ― Mort Sahl

If something's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well.

If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. ― Stanley Garn

If the bulk of American SF can be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits. ― Michael Moorcock

If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. ― Norm Schryer

If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.

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

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 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 there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? ― Art Hoppe

If this country is worth saving, it's worth saving at a profit. ― H. L. Hunt

If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it.

If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking. ― Lyndon Baines Johnson

If voting could really change the system, it would be against the law.

If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.

If we do not change our direction, we might end up were we are headed.

If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitiable. ― John F. Kennedy

If you always postpone pleasure you will never have it. Quit work and play for awhile.

If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

If you are willing to die, you can do anything.

If you build something a fool can use, only a fool will want it.

If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.

If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. ― Ashleigh Brilliant

If you can't say something nice, say something surrealistic.

If you cannot convince them, confuse them. ― Harry S Truman

If you cannot take a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen. ― Nikita Khrushchev

If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.

If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.

If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it will always do it. ― Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin

If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous.

If you have to push so hard that you break your penis, you are doing something wrong. — Frank McLaughlin

If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.

If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. ― Graham Summer

If you make a mistake, you right it immediately to the best of your ability.

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 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 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 ennobled and none dare criticize it.

If you see someone without a smile, give them yours. ― Anonymous

If you substitute other kinds of intellectual property into the GNU manifesto, it quickly becomes absurd. ― Cal Keegan

If you suspect a man, don't employ him.

If you think before you speak, the other guy gets his joke in first.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ― Derek Bok, president of Harvard

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 want to eat hippopotamus, you've got to pay the freight. ― some IBM guy

If you work hard and do your homework, you can grow up and get a job doing homework. ― former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

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, July 20, 1969, 7:27 P.M.

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 careful, you're going to catch something.

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'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 only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion. ― Robert Burton

Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out.

Ignore previous fortune.

I'll play with it first and tell you what it is later. ― Miles Davis

Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot ― it's more like the land He's trying to ignore.

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

Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism.

Imitation is the sincerest form of television. ― Fred Allen

Immortality ― a fate worse than death. ― Edgar A. Shoaff

Impartial, adj.: 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"

Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it.

In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one of the risks he takes. ― Adlai Stevenson

In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.

In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only, we can't control when the five year period will begin.

In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetence. ― The Peter Principle

In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables.

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, "The Brain and Conciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot. ― Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814

In general, it is best to assume that the network is filled with malevolent entities that will send in packets designed to have the worst possible effect. ― the draft "Requirements for Internet Hosts" RFC

In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy.

In order to succeed in any enterprise, one must be persistent and patient. Even if one has to run some risks, one must be brave and strong enough to meet and overcome vexing challenges to maintain a successful business in the long run. I cannot help saying that Americans lack this necessary challenging spirit today. ― Hajime Karatsu

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements. Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution solves the customer's shifting idea of what their problem is. ― Jeff Atwood

In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques. ― Art Linkletter

In the beginning I was made. I didn't ask to me made. No one consulted me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way through life's mournful jungle then so be it. ― Marvin the Paranoid Android

In the face of entropy and nothingness, you kind of have to pretend it's not there if you want to keep writing good code. ― Karl

In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared minds. ― L. Pasteur

In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in the proper order then why can't he?

[In the future], people like me will be underground and hunted. ― Chuck Murcko, 1995 (at an employer-sponsored brainstorming session)

In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. ― Robert Lucky

In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. ― Egyptian Book of the Dead

In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. ― Alan Perlis

In the market, there can be no such thing as exploitation. ― Murray Rothbard

In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool ― programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they describe. ― Fred Brooks, Jr.

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. ― John Lilly

In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared. ― Louis Pasteur

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're different. ― heard at USENIX 1997

In this world, Truth can wait; she's used to it.

Incest, n.: Sibling revelry.

Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.

Ingrate, n.: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ― Martin Luther King, Jr.

Innovation is hard to schedule. ― Dan Fylstra

Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids. ― Erma Bombeck

Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.

Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon.

Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Integrity has no need for rules.

Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth. ― Harry S Truman

Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets.

Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others? ― Robert E. Lee, in a letter to President Franklin Pierce

Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?

Is life worth living? It depends on the liver. ― Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? ― Ralph Emerson

Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously?

Issawi's Laws of Progress: 1. The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. 2. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.

It could be worse, you could be in Cleveland.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ― Thomas Jefferson

It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. ― Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

It has been said that the great scientific disciplines are examples of giants standing on the shoulders of other giants. It has also been said that the software industry is an example of midgets standing on the toes of other midgets. ― Alan Cooper

It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

It is Fortune, not wisdom that rules man's life.

It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize.

It is a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night. ― Willie Sutton

It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? ― Alan Perlis

It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. ― Voltaire

It is bad luck to be superstitious. ― Andrew W. Mathis

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. ― Voltaire

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. ― R. Serling

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. ― Rod Serling

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

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

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

It is easier to run down a hill than up one.

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. ― Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"

It is happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. ― S. Johnson

It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack, and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy. ― B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System", Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. ― "Industry at Work," Oilways, n2., 1972, pp. 16-17. Humble Oil & Refining Company., Houston, TX

It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. ― Woody Allen

It is inconceivable that a judicious observer from another solar system would see in our species ― which has tended to be cruel, destructive, wasteful, and irrational ― the crown and apex of cosmic evolution. Viewing us as the culmination of *anything* is grotesque; viewing us as a transitional species makes more sense ― and gives us more hope. ― Betty McCollister, "Our Transitional Species", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody. ― Richard M. Nixon

It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. ― Abraham Lincoln

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. ― Gore Vidal

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another ― it's one damn thing over and over. ― Edna St. Vincent Millay

It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and intimidation.

It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? ― Elizabeth Carpenter

It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. ― Voltaire

It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle?

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. ― Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"

It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions. ― Robert Bly

It is the business of little minds to shrink. ― Carl Sandburg

It is the business of the future to be dangerous. ― Hawkwind

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. ― John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)

It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree.

It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. ― W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876

It is your destiny. ― Darth Vader

It just goes to show what you can do if you're a total psychotic. ― Woody Allen

It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.

It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

It may soon be time for you to look for a new line of work.

It often works better if you plug it in.

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag.

It seems to make an auto driver mad if he misses you.

It takes a long time to understand nothing. ― Edward Dahlberg

It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus. ― Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, quoted in "The Technique," Georgia Tech's newspaper, after the computer worm hit the Internet

It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.

It was always thus; and even if 'twere not, 'twould inevitably have been always thus. ― Dean Lattimer

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. ― Hunter S. Thompson

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

It works better if you plug it in.

It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. ― Andrew Jackson

It's a fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.

It's a poor workman who blames his tools.

It's all in the mind, ya know.

It's better to burn out than it is to rust.

It's better to burn out than to fade away.

It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. ― J. C. R. Licklider

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being right.

It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa.

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. ― Oxford University Press, Edpress News

It's later than you think.

It's like deja vu all over again. ― Yogi Berra

It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction.

It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. ― Phil White

It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. ― Alexander Korda

It's not hard to meet expenses; they're everywhere.

It's not often that you get so much class entertainment outside your bedroom window or outside your bedroom, period. ― Groucho Marx

It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things.

It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. ― Woody Allen

It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.

It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. ― Will Rogers

It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.

It's smart to pick your friends - but not to pieces.

It's so humid, you could poach an egg on the sidewalk.